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RICHTER'S     WRITINGS. 


TITAN.     A  Romance.    2  vols.     16mo.     $3.00. 

PLOWER,   FRUIT,   AND    THORN    PIECES.     2 

vols.     16mo.     $2.75. 

LEV  ANA ;   Or,   The    Doctrine    of    Education.     1  vol. 
16mo.     $150. 

THE    CAMPANER    THAL,    and    Other    Writings. 
1  vol.     lemo.     $1.50. 

HESPERUS.     2  vols.     16mo.     Preparing. 

The  above  volumes  are  printed  in  uniform  size  and  style. 


IN     PRESS. 

LIFE    OF    JEAN    PAUL.      By    Eliza    Bdckminster 

Lke.     New  Edition,  Revised.     1  volume. 

TICKNOR  AND  FIELDS,   Publishers. 


THE 


CAM  PAN  ER   THAL, 

AND 

OTHER    WRITINGS. 

From  the  German  of 
JEAN    PAUL    FRIEDRICH    RICHTER. 


BOSTON: 

TICKNOR     AND     FIELDS, 

1864. 


University    Press: 

Welch,    Bigelow,    and   Company, 

Cambridge. 


'%7 


CONTENTS 


THE    CAMPANER     THAL. 

PAGE 

Introduction 3 

5oi«t     STATION. 

The  Diversities  of  Life.  —  The  Dirge  as  Rillet-Doux. 
—  The  Cavern.  —  The  Surprise 7 

502d     STATION. 

The  Thundering  Morning.  —  The  Short  Trip  after  the 
Long  One.  —  The  Sofa-Cushions 17 

503d    STATION. 

Lampoon  on  the  Chaplain.  —  Praise  of  Him.  —  The  Dia- 
mond. —  Opinions  against  Immortality.  —  Eden  Jokes  .      25 

5o4tii    STATION. 
Flower  Toying .        .      82 

505*11    STATION. 

The  Ephemera.  —  Relative  Conclusions.  —  Doubts  of  the 
Length  of  the  Chain  of  Living  Beings.  — The  Wart- 
Eaters.  —  The  Cure 34 

506*11    STATION. 
Objections   to   Immortality.  —  The   Second    Childhood 
of  the  Outer  and  Inner  1\Ian 40 


CONTENTS. 


507th    STATION. 

The  Theft  of  the  Souvenir.  —  Answers  to  previous  Sta- 
tions. —  On  the  Emigration  of  the  Dead  to  the  Plan- 
ets. —  The  Threefold  World  in  Man.  —  Grief  without 
Hope.  —  The  Seal  of  Immortality.  —  The  Countky- 
Seat.  —  The  Balloons.  —  Ecstasy 47 


LIFE    OF    ^UINTUS    FIXLEIN, 
Letter  to  my  Friends,  instead  of  Preface       ...      73 

FIRST    LETTER-BOX. 
Dog-Days'  Vacation.  —  Visits.  —  An  Indigent  of  Quality      79 

SECOND    LETTER-BOX. 

Frau  von    Aufhammer.  —  Childhood-Resonance.  —  Au- 
thorcraft 97 

THIRD    LETTER-BOX. 
Christmas  Recollections.  —  New  Occurrence    .        .        .    110 

FOURTH    LETTER-BOX. 
Office-Brokage.  —  Discovery  of  the  promised  Secret.  — 
Hans  von  Fuchslein 116 

FIFTH    LETTER-BOX. 
Cantata-Sunday.  —  Two  Testaments.  —  Pontac  ;   Blood  ; 
Love 129 

SIXTH    LETTER-BOX. 
Office-Impost.  —  One  of  the  most  important  of  Petitions    148 

SEVENTH    LETTER-BOX. 
Sermon.  —  School  Exhip.ition.  —  Splendid  Mistake  .        .    160 

EIGHTH    LETTER-BOX. 
Instalment  in  the  Parsonage 174 


CONTENTS.  V 

NINTH    LETTER-BOX. 
Or  to  the  Maeriage 184 

TENTH    LETTER-BOX. 
St.  Thomas' s-D ay  and  Birthday 192 

ELEVENTH    LETTER-BOX. 
Spring  ;  L*ive«titure  ;  and  Childbirth        ....    200 

TWELFTH    LETTER-BOX. 
Steeple-Ball  Ascension.  —  The  Toy-Press  .        .        .        .217 

THIRTEENTH    LETTER-BOX. 
Christening 221 

FOURTEENTH  LETTER-BOX    .   226 
CHAPTER  LA  ST..   .   .231 


SCHMELZLE'S    JOURNET    TO    FLATZ. 

Preface 247 

Circular  Letter  of  the  proposed  Catechetical  Pro- 
fessor Attila  Schmelzel  to  his  Friends  ;  containing 
some  Account  of  a  Holidays'  Journey  to  Flatz,  with 
AN  Introduction,  touching  his  Flight,  and  his  Courage 

AS   FORMER   ArMY-ChAPLAIN 251 

Journey  to  Flatz 260 

First  Stage  ;   from  Neusattel  to  Vierstadten        .        .  262 

Second  Stage  ;   from  Vierstadten  to  Niederschona    .  274 

Third  Stage  ;   from  Niederschona  to  Flatz      .        .        .  280 

First  Day  in  Flatz 283 

First  Night  in  Flatz 298 

Second  Day  in  Flatz 302 


VI  CONTENTS. 

ANALECTS    FROM    RICHTER, 

The  Happy  Life  of  a  Parish  Priest  in  Sweden    .        .  321 

DREAai  UPON  the  Universe 327 

Complaint  of  the  Bird  in  a  darkened  Cage         .        .  333 

On  the  Death  of  Young  Children 334 

The  prophetic  Dew-Drops 334 

On  Death 335 

Imagination  untamed  by  the  coarser  Realities  of  Life  336 

Satirical  Notice  of  Reviewers 337 

Female  Tongues 337 

Forgiveness 338 

The  Grandeur  of  Man  in  his  Littleness        ...  339 

Night .  339 

The  Stars 340 

Martyrdom 340 

The  Quarrels  of  Friends 340 

Dreaming 341 

Two  Divisions  of  Philosophic  Minds         ....  341 

Dignity  of  Man  in  Self-Sacrifice 342 

Fancy         .        • 343 


MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES. 

Reminiscences  of  the  best  Hours  of  Life  for  the  Hour 

OF  Death 347 

The  New- Year's  Night  of  an  Unhappy  ;Man       .        .        .364 

The  Death  of  an  Angel 367 

A  Dream  and  the  Truth 373 

The  Realty  of  Death  in  the  Bloom  of  Youth     .        .        376 


THE 


CaMPANER.  ThAL; 


DISCOUESES  ON  THE  IMMOETALITY  OE  THE  SOUL. 


TRANSLATED   BY  JULIETTE  BAUER. 


"Report  also,  we  regret  to  say,  is  all  that  we  know  of  the 
Campaner  TJial,  one  of  Richter's  beloved  topics,  or  rather  the  life 
of  his  whole  philosophy,  glimpses  of  which  look  forth  on  us  from 
almost  every  one  of  his  writings.  He  died  while  engaged,  under 
recent  and  almost  total  blindness,  in  enlai'ging  and  remodelling 
this  Campaner  Thai  The  unfinished  manuscript  was  borne  upon 
his  coflSn  to  the  burial  vault ;  and  Klopstock's  hymn,  Aitferstehen 
wirst  dn  !  '  Thou  shalt  arise,  my  soul ! '  can  seldom  have  been  sung 
viith  more  appropriate  application  than  over  the  grave  of  Jean 
Paul."  —  From   Carljjle's  Miscellanies,. 


<t:f>Q>' 


INTRODUCTION 


N  my  distilling  processes,  I  frequently  precipi- 
tated the  phlegma  of  our  earthball  —  its  polar 
deserts,  its  Russian  forests,  its  icebergs  —  and 
from  the  sediments  extracted  a  beautiful  by- 
earth,  a  small  satellite.  If  we  extract  and  regulate  the 
charms  of  this  old  world,  we  can  form  a  delightful  though 
minutely  condensed  world. 

For  the  caves  of  this  miniature  or  ditto-earth,  we  will 
take  the  caves  of  Antiparos  and  of  Baumann,  for  its 
plains,  the  Rhine  provinces  —  Hybla,  Thabor,  and  Mont 
Blanc  shall  be  its  mountains  —  its  islands,  the  Friendly, 
the  Holy,  and  the  Palm  isles.  Wentworth's  park  and 
Daphne's  grotto,  and  some  corner-pieces  from  the  Pa- 
phian,  we  have  for  its  forests  —  for  a  charming  valley,  the 
Seifer's-dorfer  and  that  of  Campan.  Thus  we  possess, 
besides  this  dirty,  weary  world,  the  most  beautiful  by  or 
after- world  —  an  important  dessert  service  —  an  Ante- 
Heaven  between  Ante-Hells. 

I  have  purposely  included  this  valley  of  Campan  in  my 
extract  and  decoction,  as  I  know  none  other  in  which  I 
would  rather  awake,  or  die,  or  love  than  in  this  one  ;  if  I 
had  to  command,  I  would  not  permit  my  valley  to  be 
mixed  up  or  placed  beside  the  vale  of  Tempe  or  the  Rose 


4  CAMPANER    THAL. 

Valley,  perhaps  with  Utopia.  The  reader  must  have 
known  this  valley  in  his  geographical  lessons,  or  in  the 
works  of  Arthur  Young,  who  praises  it  even  more  than  I 
do.* 

I  must  take  for  granted,  that  in  July,  1796,  the  God- 
dess of  Fortune  descended  from  her  throne  to  our  earth, 
and  placed  in  my  hand  —  not  mammon,  nor  garters,  nor 
golden  sheep  —  nothing  but  her  own,  and  led  me  —  by 
this  I  recognized  the  goddess  —  to  the  Campan  vale. 
Truly,  man  needs  but  look  into  it,  and  he  will  have  —  as 
I  had  —  more  than  the  Devil  offered  to  Christ  and  Louis 
XIV.,  and  gave  to  the  popes. 

The  test  of  enjoyment  is  memory.  Only  the  paradises 
of  the  imagination  willingly  remain,  and  are  never  lost, 
but  always  conquered.  Poetry  alone  reconciles  the  past 
to  the  future,  and  is  the  Orpheus's  l}Te  which  commands 
these  two  destroying  rocks  to  rest,  f 

As  stated,  in  the  year  1796,  I  made  a  trip  through 
France,  with  my  friend  H.  Karlson.  He  is  honorary  mas- 
ter of  horse  in  the  *  *  *  service.  The  wise  public  cares 
little  for  true  names,  it  always  treats  them  as  fictitious 
ones,  by  way  of  literary  taxation  ;  and  the  existing  char- 
acters, at  least  those  of  any  importance,  may  prefer  not  to 
be  torn  over  the  wheel  of  criticism,  and  dragged  piece- 
meal through  libraries  and  reading-clubs.  At  almost 
every  milestone,  I  despatched  the  best  hourly  bulletin  to 
my  frifend  Victor :  when  I  had  sent  him  the  following 
valley-piece,  he  persecuted  me  until  I  promised  to  grant 

*  I  need  not  tell  any  one  that  the  valley  itself  is  situated  in  the 
departments  of  the  Upper  Pyrenees. 

t  It  is  well  known  that  the  Symplegadian  rocks  continually  dashed 
against  each  other,  and  destroyed  every  passing  ship,  until  Orpheus's 
lyre  subdued  and  tranquillized  them. 


INTRODUCTION.  5 

this  illuminated  portrait  of  nature,  not  alone  to  the  letter, 
but  also  to  the  printing-press.  Therefore  I  do  it.  I 
know  already,  my  poor  Victor  sees,  that  in  our  days  no 
green  branch  is  left  as  a  spinning-hut  for  the  man-cater- 
pillar, and  that  inimical  divers  try  to  cut  our  anchor-rope, 
sunk  in  the  sea  of  death.  Therefore  he  tliinks  more  of 
the  conversations  on  immortality,  than  of  the  valley  in 
which  they  took  place.  I  know  this,  because  he  calls  me 
the  counterpart  of  Claude  Lorraine,  who  only  drew  the 
landscape,  while  another  drew  the  human  beings  in  it. 
Truly  such  a  vaUey  deserves  that  the  mining  and  sabbath- 
lamp  of  truth  should  be  lowered  into  the  suffocating  air 
of  the  grave,  in  place  of  our  self,  merely  to  see  if  that  self 
can  breathe  at  such  a  depth. 

I  have  jokingly  divided  my  letters  into  stations.  I  of 
course  omit  500,  and  commence  at  the  501st,  wherein  I 
appear  in  the  valley. 


CAMPANER  THAL 


5oi^t    STATION 


The   Diversities  of   Life.  —  The    Dirge  as    Billet-Doux.  — 
The  Cavern.  —  The  Surprise. 

Campan,  23c?  July. 

ERE  have  I  been  since  the  day  before  yester- 
day. After  descent  into  hell  and  purgatory, 
and  passage  through  Umbos  infantum  et  pa- 
trum,  man  must  at  last  reach  heaven.  But  I 
owe  you  yet  our  exit  from  our  inn  on  the  20  th.  Never 
can  the  head  have  a  harder  couch  than  when  we  hold  it 
in  our  hands.  The  reason  that  this  happened  to  Karlson 
and  myself  was,  that  in  the  rooms  adjoining  ours  a  wed- 
ding-dance was  taking  place,  and  that  below,  the  youngest 
daughter  of  our  maitre  <^ hotel,  who  had  not  only  the 
name,  but  also  the  charms  of  Corday,  with  two  white 
roses  on  her  cheeks,  and  two  red  ones  in  her  hair,  was 
being  interred,  and  that  human  beings  with  pale  faces 
and  heavy  hearts  waited  on  happy  and  blooming  ones. 
"When  fate  harnesses  to  Psyche's  car,  the  merry  and  the 
mourning  steed  together,  the  mourning  one  ever  takes 
the  lead ;  i.  e.  if  the  muses  of  IMirth  and  Sorrow  play  on 
the  same  stage  in  the  same  hour,  man  does  not,  like 

1  A 


8  CAMPAXER    THAL. 

Garrick,*  follow  the  former ;  lie  does  not  even  remain 
neuter,  but  takes  the  side  of  the  mourning  one.  Thus 
we  always  paint,  like  Milton,  our  lost  Pai'adise  more 
glowing  than  the  regained  one,  —  like  Dante,  hell  better 
than  purgatory.  In  short,  the  silent  corpse  made  us  cold 
to  the  warm,  jo}^ul  influence  of  the  dancers.  But  is  it 
not  absurd,  my  dear  Victor,  that  a  man  who,  like  myself, 
knows  nothing  better  than  that  every  hour  unfolds  at 
once  morning  bloom  and  evening  clouds  ;  that  here  an 
Ash  "Wednesday  and  there  a  black  Monday  commence ; 
that  such  a  man,  who  grieves  little  that  dancing  music 
and  funeral  marches  should  sound  at  the  same  time  on 
the  broad  national  theatre  of  humanity,  should  yet  hang 
his  head  and  grow  pale,  when,  in  a  side  scene,  this  double 
music  sounds  in  his  ears  ?  Is  not  this  as  absurd  as  all 
his  other  doings  ? 

Into  Karlson's  eyes  something  of  this  cloud  had  fallen. 
It  was  to  him  the  restirred  ashes  of  a  funeral  urn.  He 
can  withstand  all  sorrows,  but  not  their  recollection. 
He  has  replaced  his  years  by  lands,  and  the  space  he  has 
travelled  over  must  be  called  his  time.  But  the  firm 
youth  changed  color  when  he  came  to  tell  that  the  lover 
of  the  i^ale  Corday  had  torn  her  folded  taper  hands 
asunder,  and,  on  liis  knees,  had  dragged  them  to  his 
burning  lips. 

He  perceived  his  paleness  in  the  glass  ;  and  to  explain 
it,  he  imparted  the  last  and  most  secret  leaf  of  his  life's 
Ivobinsonade  to  me.  You  see  what  an  opaque  gem  this 
youth  is,  who  follows  his  friends  through  all  France, 
without  opening  to  his  communicative  friend  and  travel- 
ling companion,  even  a  fold  or  a  loophole  in  his  relation 

*  Alluding  to  a  painting  by  Reynolds,  in  which  Garrick,  invited  by 
both  Muses,  follows  Thalia. 


CAMPANER    THAL.  9 

to  them.  Now  only  from  emotion  on  entering  the 
Campan  Vale,  he  draws  the  key  from  the  keyhole,  which 
shall  become  a  prompter's  hole  for  you. 

That  he  had  accompanied  the  Baron  Wilhelmi  and  his 
betrothed  Gione,  with  her  sister  Nadine,  to  Lausanne,  in 
order  to  celebrate  their  Arcadian  marriage  in  the  Cam- 
pan  Vale,  you  know  already  ;  that  he  had  left  them  sud- 
denly at  Lausanne,  and  returned  to  the  Rhine  fall  at 
Shaffhausen,  you  know  also,  but  not  the  reason,  which 
will  now  be  related  to  you  by  me  and  by  him. 

By  daily  contact  Karlson  had  at  last  penetrated  the 
thickly-woven  veil,  magically  colored  by  betrothed  love, 
thrown  over  the  strong,  firm,  and  kindred  mind  of  Gione. 
Probably  others  discovered  him  ere  he  had  discovered 
himself.  His  heart  became  like  the  so-called  world's 
eye  *  in  water,  first  bright,  then  varying  its  colors,  then 
dull  and  misty,  and  at  last  transparent.  Not  to  cloud 
their  beautiful  intimacy,  he  addressed  the  suspicious  part 
of  his  attentions  to  Nadine.  He  did  not  explain  to  me 
clearly  whether  he  had  led  her  into  a  beautiful  error, 
without  taking  a  beautiful  truth  from  Gione. 

The  sword  of  death  seemed  likely  to  separate  all  these 
stage  knots.  Gione,  the  healthy  and  calm  Gione,  was 
suddenly  attacked  by  a  nervous  disorder.  One  evening, 
Wilhelmi,  with  his  usual  poetic  ardor,  entered  Karlson's 
chamber  weeping,  and,  embracing  him,  could  only  sob 
forth  the  words,  "  She  is  no  more. " 

Karlson  said  not  a  word,  but  in  the  tumult  of  his  own 
and  others'  griefs,  departed  that  night  for  Shaffhausen, 
and  probably  fled  at  the  same  time  from  a  beloved  and 
a  loving  one,  —  from  Gione  and  from  Nadine.  By  this 
eternal  waterspout  of  the  Rhine,  this  onward  pressing, 

*  A  kind  of  jelly-fish. 
1  * 


lO  CAMPANER    TEAL. 

molten  avalanclie,  this  gleaming  perpendicular  milky- 
waj,  his  soul  was  slowly  healed  ;  but  he  was  long  im- 
prisoned in  the  dark,  cold,  serpent's-nest  of  envenomed 
pams  ;  they  entwined  and  crawled  over  him,  even  to  his 
heart.  For  he  believed,  as  most  world-men  among  whom 
he  had  grown  up  do,  —  perhaps,  also,  too  much  accus- 
tomed to  analyzed  ideas  and  opinions  by  his  favorite 
study,  chemistry,  —  that  our  last  sleep  is  annihilation,  as 
in  the  epopee  the  first  man  imagined  the  first  sleep  to  be 
the  first  death. 

To  Wilhelmi  he  only  sent  the  name  of  his  retreat  and 
a  poem,  entitled,  "  Grief  without  Hope,"  wliich  declared 
his  disbehef,  for  he  had  never  broken  the  Ambrosia, 
whose  dehghts  a  trust  in  immortality  affords.  But  just 
that  strengthened  his  enfeebled  heart,  that  the  muses  led 
him  to  Hippocrene's  spring  of  health. 

AVilhelmi  answered,  that  he  had  read  his  beautiful 
requiem  to  the  deceased,  or  the  immortal  one.  A  long 
swoon  had  occasioned  the  painful  mistake.  Gione  and 
he  entreated  him  to  follow  speedily.  Karlson  replied: 
"  Fate  had  separated  him  from  their  beautiful  feast  by 
the  Alpine  Wall,  but  as  it  would,  like  the  Campan  Yale, 
ever  renew  its  springs,  he  hoped  to  lose  nothing  but  time 
by  his  delay." 

Now  that  the  next  world  had  cast  its  supernatural 
light  on  Gione's  countenance,  Karlson  loved  her  too 
much  to  be  capable  of  assisting  at  the  ceremony  of  losing 
her  forever.  I  will  give  you  the  opinion  I  fonned  of 
her  by  listening  to  his  description. 

Even  by  a  love  and  a  praise  in  a  person's  absence  we 
may  be  won ;  how  much  more,  then,  if  both  are  thrown 
to  us  as  farewell  kisses  after  the  ascent  to  Heaven ! 
Therefore  the  idea  of  the  future  funeral  procession  be- 


CAMPANER    THAL.  II 

hind  my  gaj,  richly  decorated  dust,  onion  and  relic  box 
is  only  another  incentive,  not  only  to  drug,  but  also  to 
absolve  myself,  for  when  older  we  are  less  missed.  And 
even  you,  who  so  seldom  hang  us,  or  drive  us  all  to  the 
Devil,  I  mean,  how  seldom  soever  the  tempest  of  anger 
sours  the  beer-barrel  of  your  breast !  Even  you  have 
no  more  efficacious  morsel  of  white  chalk,  no  better  oleum 
tartari  per  deliquium,^  with  which  you  can  sweeten  your 
internal  fluids,  than  the  thought  how  we  shall  all  turn 
pale  round  your  death-bed,  and  be  dumb  at  your  grave- 
mound,  and  how  none  will  forget  you  !  I  cannot  possibly 
beheve  that  there  exists  one  being  who,  when  death 
draws  him  into  the  diving-bell  of  the  grave,  will  not 
leave  one  weeping  eye,  one  bending  head  behind,  and 
therefore  each  one  can  love  the  soul  which  will  some  time 
weep  for  him. 

When  I  think  now  of  the  convalescent  Gione,  with  her 
wounded  heart,  which  had  received  a  new  sensitiveness 
in  the  hot  electric  atmosphere  of  the  sinking  thunderbolt 
^of  Death,  I  need  not  measure  her  emotion  at  Karlson's 
poem,  by  the  dew  and  hygrometer,  nor  with  the  loadstone 
of  her  love.  But  not  Wilhelmi's  brilhant  riches,  nor 
his  still  more  briUiant  conduct,  her  first  choice,  her  first 
jDromise,  forbade  her  even  to  touch  the  diamond  scales. 

"When  Karlson  told  me  all  this,  he  turned  Gione's 
ring-portrait  upwards  on  his  finger,  and  pressed  the  hard 
edge  of  the  ring-finger  with  his  tearful  eyes,  till  the 
adorned  hand  was  unconsciously  touched  by  the  lip's  kiss. 
Tlie  bashfulness  of  his  grief  moved  me  so  much,  that  I 
offered  to  take  another  route  into  the  Vale,  under  the 
pretence  that  the  dreams  of  it  had  lessened  the  desire  for 
the  reality,  and  that  we  should  disturb  the  newly-affianced 

*  Ten  drops  of  this  instantly  sweeten  half  a  pound  of  sour  beer. 


12  CAMPANER    THAL. 

in  their  first  rose-honey  days,  as  they  had  probably 
waited  for  the  mild  late  spring.  He  divined  my  inten- 
tion ;  but  his  promise  to  come  to-morrow  dragged  him  by 
chains.  Eight  gladly  would  I  have  missed  the  new 
spring-filled  Eden,  and  drawn  from  my  friend's  feet  the 
Jacob's  ladder  from  which  he  might  gaze  on  his  former 
glad  heaven,  but  could  not  ascend  to  it.  On  the  other 
hand,  I  rejoiced  at  liis  firm,  promise-keeping  character, 
which  opposed  its  strong  nature  to  the  thorns  and  boring- 
worms  of  sorrow ;  as  with  the  increase  of  moonlight, 
tempests  decrease.  Unperceived,  I  now  added  Gione, 
not  only  Karlson,  to  the  list  of  rare  beings,  who,  like 
Raphael's  and  Plato's  works,  uncloud  themselves  only  on 
earnest  contemplation,  and  who,  as  both,  resemble  the 
Pleiades,  which  to  the  naked  eye  seems  only  to  have 
seven  suns,  but  with  a  telescope  discloses  more  than 
forty. 

On  the  20th,  we  started  towards  the  Yale.  On  the 
way,  I  looked  too  often  into  Karlson's  faithful,  heavenly, 
deep-blue  eyes.  I  descended  into  his  heart,  and  sought 
the  scene  of  the  day  on  which  the  holy  church  tie  would 
tear  the  noble  Gione  forever  from  out  his  pure  muse 
and  goddess-warmed  heart.  I  confess  I  can  imagine  no 
day  on  which  I  regard  my  friend  with  deeper  emotion 
that  on  that  never-to-be-forgotten  one,  on  which  Fate 
gives  him  the  brother  kiss,  the  hand-pressure,  the  land  of 
love  and  Philadelphia  and  Vaucluse's  spring,  united  in 
one  female  heart. 

The  day  before  yesterday,  at  ten  in  the  evening, 
we  arrived  at  Wilhelmi's  Arcadian  dwelHng,  which 
pressed  its  straw  roof  against  a  green  marble  wall. 
Karlson  found  it  easily  from  its  proximity  to  the  famed 
Campan  Cave,  from  which  he  had  often  broken  stalac- 


CAMPANEE    THAL.  13 

tites.  The  sky  was  clouded  with  colored  shadows,  and 
on  the  green  cradle  of  slumbering  children  night  threw 
her  star-embroidered  cradle-cover,  fastened  to  the  sum- 
mits of  the  Pyrenees.  From  out  Wilhelmi's  hermitage 
advanced  some  men  in  black  attire,  with  torches  in  their 
hands,  who  seemed  to  be  waiting  for  us,  and  told  us  the 
baron  was  in  the  Cave.  By  heaven,  under  such  circum- 
stances, it  is  easier  to  imagine  the  most  cii'cumscribed, 
than  the  largest  and  most  beautiful  Cave  !  The  sable 
attendants  carried  the  flame  before  them,  and  drew  the 
flying  smoke-picture  from  oak-top  to  oak-top,  and  led 
us,  stooping,  through  the  catacomb  entrance.  But  how 
splendidly  was  arched  the  liigh  and  wide  grotto,*  with  its 
crystal  sides,  shining  like  an  illumined  ice  Louvre,  a 
gleaming  sub-terrestrial  heaven  vault.  Wilhelmi  threw 
away  a  handful  of  gathered  spars,  and  joyfully  hastened 
into  his  friend's  arms.  Gione,  with  her  sister,  advanced 
from  behind  a  connected  stalactite  and  stalagmite.  The 
gleaming  of  the  torches  gave  her  an  undecided  outline, 
but  at  length  Wilhelmi  advanced  to  her,  and  said,  "  Here 
is  our  friend."  Bending  low,  Karlson  kissed  the  warm 
living  hand,  and  was  dumb  with  emotion.  But  the  firm 
features  of  Gione's  earnest  face,  which  wanted  but 
Nadine's  juvenile  bloom,  changed  into  a  shining  joy, 
greater  than  he  dared  to  return  or  reward.  "  We  have 
long  expected  and  missed  you  in  this  paradise,"  she  said, 
with  unshaken  voice ;  and  her  clear,  calm  eye  opened  a 
view  into  a  richly-gifted,  steadfast  soul.  "  Welcome  to 
the  infernal  regions,"  said  Nadine  ;  "  you  believe  in 
reunion  and  Elysium  now  ?  "  Though  she  received  him 
with  an  assemblage  or  Flora  of  wit,  or  was  it  grace  ?  for 
they  were  difficult  to  distinguish,  this  cheerfulness  of 
*  The  cave  is  twenty  feet  high,  but  the  entrance  only  five  feet. 


14  CAMPANER    THAL. 

character  aiid  acquirement  seemed  not  to  be  the  cheer- 
fulness of  a  contented  or  reposeful  mind. 

My  friend  introduced  me  properly,  tLat  no  supermem- 
ber  or  hors  d'ceuvre  should  remain  in  this  corporation  of 
friendship. 

To  all  of  us  — even  to  me  —  for  around  me  never  be- 
fore seen  beings  floated  in  silver  reflections  —  it  seemed 
as  if  the  world  had  ceased,  Elysium  had  opened,  and  the 
separated,  covered,  sub-terrestrial  regions  cradled  only 
tranquil,  but  happy  souls. 

There  was  a  certain  heartfulness  in  the  joyous  interest 
which  this  affectionate  trinity  took  in  Karlson's  appear- 
ance, wliich  generally  accompanies  the  last  step  before 
the  disclosure  of  some  hidden  plan,  but  this  plan  was 
concealed.  To  speak  something  also  to  me,  Nadine  said, 
that  there  was  a  critical  philosopher  and  arguer  with 
them,  who  would  rejoice  to  hear  any  one  for  or  against 
his  opinions, — namely,  the  house-chaplain.  When  we 
stepped  from  the  illumined  diamond  and  magic  cave  into 
the  dark  night,  we  saw  the  cloak  of  Erebus  hang  in  tliick 
cloudy  folds  over  the  earth,  and  pale  lightning  shot  from 
the  nightly  mist,  the  flowers  breathed  from  covered 
calysses,  and  under  the  fost  approaching  storm  the 
nightingales  raised  theii*  melodious  voices  behind  their 
blooming  hedges. 

Suddenly  Gione  walked  more  slowly  by  Karlson's  side, 
and  said,  with  much  wai'mth,  but  without  hesitation :  ''  I 
heartily  love  truth,  even  at  the  expense  of  stage-like 
effect :  I  must,  in  the  name  of  the  Baron,  discover  to  you 
that  he  and  I  will  to-morrow  be  forever  united.  You 
must  forgive  your  friend  that  he  woidd  not  celebrate  this 
ceremony  without  his." 

I  think  that  now,  in  Karlson's  heart,  the  cooled  lava 


CAMPANER    THAL.  15 

immediately  became  fluid  and  gloAving.  Suddenly  light- 
ning flashed  from  a  cloud  around  the  rising  moon,  and 
illumined  the  rain-drops,  intended  for  darkness,  in  Gione's 
and  in  Karlson's  eyes.  Wilhelmi  asked,  "  Can  you  not 
forgive  me  ? ''  Karlson  pressed  him  warmly  and  lovingly 
to  his  grateful  heart :  this  lofty  confidence  of  friendship, 
and  this  affectionate  proof  of  it,  raised  his  strengthened 
soul  above  all  desires,  and  another's  virtue  spread  in  his 
breast  the  calm  tranquillity  of  his  own.  We  took  shelter 
for  the  night  in  three  Thabor  huts,  —  the  ladies  in 
the  first,  Wilhelmi  with  the  critical  philosopher  in  the 
second,  Karlson  and  myself  in  the  third,  —  w^hich  the 
Baron  had  hired  for  us.  The  fatigue  of  the  journey,  and 
even  of  our  feelings,  deferred  our  joys  and  confidences 
for  another  night.  But  I  cannot  tell  you  how  nobly 
sorrow  changed  into  exaltation  in  my  friend's  counte- 
nance, how  grief  fell  like  a  cloud  from  his  heaven,  and 
discovered  the  serene  blue  beneath.  The  sacrifices  and 
virtues  of  our  beloved  ones  belong  to  the  inexpressible 
joys  which  the  soul  at  least  can  count  and  appreciate; 
which  it  can  imitate. 

His  and  my  eyes  overflowed  with  holy  gladness  from 
a  singularly  elysian  mood  of  harmony  in  anticipation  of 
the  coming  day.  Ah,  my  Victor!  nations  and  men  are 
only  the  best  when  they  are  the  gladdest,  and  deserve 
Heaven  when  they  enjoy  it.  The  tear  of  grief  is  but  a 
diamond  of  the  second  water,  but  the  tear  of  joy  of  the 
first.  And  therefore  fatherly  fate,  thou  spreadest  the 
flowers  of  joy,  as  nurses  do  lilies  in  the  nursery  of  life, 
that  the  awakening  children  may  sleep  the  sounder  ! 
O,  let  philosophy,  which  grudges  our  pleasures,  and  blots 
them  out  from  the  plans  of  Providence,  say  by  what 
right  did  torturing  pain  enter  into  our  frail  life  ?     Have 


l6  CAMPANER    THAL. 

we  not  already  an  eternal  right  to  a  warm  down  bed  ? 
I  think  not  now  of  the  deepest  mattress  in  the  earth, 
because  we  are  so  pierced  with  stigmas  of  the  past,  so 
covered  with  its  wounds. 

You  once  said  to  me  :  "  In  your  early  years,  you  have 
been  drawn  and  driven  from  the  stoic  pliilosophy  by 
Sorites  ;  for  if  the  sensation  of  pleasure  be  as  little  as 
the  stoics  pretend,  it  were  wiser  to  convert  than  to  benefit 
your  neighbor,  —  wiser  to  preach  morality  from  pulpit 
and  desk  than  to  practise  it  in  the  work-rooms,  —  wiser  to 
turn  towards  your  neighbor  the  dirt-balls  and  soap-pills  of 
moral  philosophy,  than  the  enlarged  marble  soap-hubhles 
of  joy.  Further,  that  it  is  a  mistake  to  assert  that  virtue 
makes  more  worthy  of  happiness,  if  happiness  possessed 
not  an  eternal,  independent  value  in  itself;  for  else  it 
might  be  maintained  that  virtue  would  make  the  pos- 
sessor of  a  straw,  &c.  worthy  —  " 

You  said  this  once.     Do  you  believe  it  yet  ?  —  I  do. 


5o2d    STATION. 


The    Thundering    Morning.  —  The    Short    Trip   after    the 
Long  One.  —  The  Sofa-Cushions. 


H ROUGH  the  whole  night,  a  half-lost  thun- 
dering was  heard,  as  though  it  murmured  in  its 
sleep.  In  the  morning,  before  sunrise,  Karl- 
son  and  myself  stepped  out  into  the  wide 
cloud-tapestried  bridal-chamber  of  nature.  The  moon 
approached  the  double  moment  of  its  waning  and  its 
fulness.  The  sun,  standing  on  America  as  on  a  burning 
altar,  drove  the  cloudy  incense  of  its  feu  de  joie  high 
and  red  into  the  air ;  but  a  morning  tempest  boiled 
angrily  above  it,  and  darted  its  fierce  lightnings  to  meet 
his  ascending  rays.  The  oppressive  heat  of  nature  drew 
longer  and  louder  plaints  from  the  nightingales,  and 
evanescent  aroma  from  the  long  flower-meads.  Heavy 
warm  drops  were  pressed  from  the  clouds,  and  beat 
loudly  on  the  stream  and  on  the  foliage.  Only  the 
Mittagshorn,  the  pinnacle  of  the  Pyrenees,  stood  brightly 
and  clearly  in  the  heavenly  blue.  Now  a  gust  of  wind 
from  the  waning  moon  dispersed  the  raging  storm,  and 
the  sun  stood  victoriously  under  a  triumphal  arch  of 
lightnings.  The  wind  restored  the  heaven's  blue,  and 
dashed  the  rain  behind  the  earth,  and  around  the  dazzhng 
sun-diamond  there  lay  only  the  silvered  fringes  of  the 
once  threatening  clouds. 

B 


l8  CAMPANER    THAL. 

O  mv  Victor,  what  a  new-born  day  was  now  on  earth, 
encamped  in  the  glorious  valley.  The  nightingales  and 
the  larks  loudly  sung  its  welcome,  the  rosechafers  rus- 
tled round  its  lily  garlands,  and  the  eagle,  riding  on 
the  highest  cloud,  surveyed  it  from  mountain  to  moun- 
tain. How  rurally  all  tilings  surrounded  the  serpentine 
field-embracing  Adour.  The  marble  walls,  not  raised  by 
human  skill,  surround  its  flower-beds  like  large  vases, 
and  tlie  Pyrenees,  with  their  high  tops,  watch  over  and 
protect  the  lowly  scattered  shepherd  huts.  Tranquil 
Tempe !  May  a  storm  never  disturb  thy  gardens  and 
thy  murmuring  Adour.  May  a  stronger  one  never  visit 
thee,  than  would  gently  rock  the  cradle  of  nature,  or 
dash  a  bee  from  the  honey-dew  of  the  wheat-sheaf, 
or  force  but  a  single  di'op  from  the  waterfall  upon  the 
flowers  of  thy  shores. 

You  must  not  think  that  I  am  placing  my  paint- 
brushes at  my  side  to  copy  the  heavenly  rounded  valley 
by  the  measure  of  art  for  you  ;  I  will  let  you  peep  into 
tliis  pictm-e-book  of  nature  as  chance  shall  turn  each 
succeeding  page.  My  stations  will  lead  you  thi'ough  its 
different  chambers,  in  which  the  rich  dowiy  of  Spring, 
like  that  of  a  king's  daughter,  is  placed  for  show.  But 
truly  it  is  a  more  glorious  thing  to  see  the  whole  dowry 
disposed  over  the  person  of  the  royal  bride  herself. 

A  servant  seeking  the  chaplain,  roused  us  both  from 
our  reverie.  We  saw  him  advance  towards  a  gentleman 
standing  on  the  banks  of  the  Adour,  who  slowly  turned 
down  his  rolled-up  shirt-sleeves.  It  was  the  chaplain, 
who  had  been  catching  crabs  during  the  storm,  and  had 
subsequently  fished.  As  I  laiew  that  his  haiiy  hand  had 
worked  for  the  food  of  the  critical,  as  well  as  his  own 
philosophy,  with  trowel  and  mortal',  with  pen  and  ink,  I 


CAMPANER    THAL.  I9 

boldly  advanced  towards  him,  and  told  him  what  I  was 
writing.  But  the  coarse,  obstinate,  yet  timid  free-mason, 
coldly  welcomed  me  in  a  language  as  broad  as  his  own 
frosty  visage. 

He  despises  biographers ;  for  the  windows  of  a  philo- 
sophical audience  are  too  high,  —  perhaps,  as  in  ancient 
temples,  in  the  roof,  —  so  that  they  cannot  see  into  the 
streets  of  real  life,  as,  according  to  Winkelmann,  the  Ro- 
man windows  were  architecturally  as  high.  Lord  Roch- 
ester is  said  to  have  been  continually  drunk  during  a 
whole  quintennium ;  but  such  a  chaplain  is  capable  of  be- 
ing sober  for  an  entire  decennium.  A  man  like  this  bites 
the  buds  of  all  powerful  truths,  experiences,  and  fictions, 
as  ants  bite  the  buds  from  corn-seeds,  that  they  may  not 
fructify,  but  wither  and  die  and  form  building  materials. 

"Wlien  tlie  Chaplain  left  me  to  join  the  Baron,  as  con- 
secrator  of  the  marriage  sacrament,  I  found  Karlson  in  the 
dustrain  of  a  near  cascade.  Round  him,  almost  close  to 
our  windows,  the  hermitages  of  the  farmers  waded  in 
green  foliage,  with  the  fresh  harvest  wreath  roofed  by 
faded  ones ;  and  inside,  there  bloomed  families,  outside, 
elms.  He  showed  me  Gione's  card,  which,  he  said,  she 
had  given  him  before  her  marriage.  But  it  was  not  so  ; 
he  had  found  it  on  the  moss  near  the  cascade.  It  repre- 
sented a  Roman  landscape,  and  beside  the  living  fountain 
was  the  pictured  one  of  Tivoli,  and  on  a  stone  in  the  fore- 
ground Gione's  name  was  written.  Such  a  printed  trifle, 
a  beloved  name  shortly  before  its  sublunar  annihilation, 
moves  the  whole  heart  with  a  succession  of  pleasing  re- 
flections. 

Karlson  went  to  the  ceremony.  I  remained  alone 
under  the  splendid  blue  heaven,  and  rejoiced  that  all  the 
inhabitants  of  Campan  wore  its  livery,  the  blue,  which  we 
had  yesterday  mistaken  for  black. 


20  CAMPAXER    THAL. 

I  will  not  liide  from  you  that  during  the  coupling,  soft- 
ened by  the  many  beauties  of  spring,  I  lost  myself  in 
Nadine's  equally  charming  ones,  which  were  an  undis- 
covered Central  Africa  for  me,  while  I  wished  she  were 
as  warm.  After  eight  or  ten  di-eams,  I  saw  the  beautiful 
couples  cross  my  path.  How  earnestly  glad  and  serene 
we  all  stood  under  the  spring  music  of  flutes  and  pipes, 
and  harps  and  warbling,  which  were  living  around  us,  with 
and  without  wings.  Gione  and  Kai-lson  concealed  an 
equal  emotion,  as  at  an  almost  equal  fate.  Wilhelmi,  who 
is,  as  a  comet,  sometimes  m  the  burning,  sometimes  in  the 
freezing  point  of  a  sun,  requires  no  joys  than  those  of 
othei^  to  make  him  happy.  But  a  tear  stood  in  Xadine's 
bright  eye,  which  could  not  be  smiled  or  looked  away. 
Her  heart  seemed  to  me  to  resemble  the  earth,  whose 
exterior  is  cold,  but  which  caiTies  in  its  centre  a  latent 
heat.  And  yesterday  her  whole  being  seemed  so  miilhful 
and  so  gay ! 

TTe  never  make  more  erroneous  conclusions  in  our 
opinions  on  any  subject  than  on  woman's  cheerfulness. 
Oh  !  how  many  of  these  charming  beings  there  are,  who 
decay  unvalued,  who,  wlule  jesting,  despair,  and  wliile 
joking,  bleed  to  death  ;  who  hide  their  merry  laughing 
eyes  behind  a  wall,  as  behuid  a  fan,  to  give  glad  vent  to 
their  long-restrained  teai^  ;  who  pay  for  a  merry  day  by  a 
tearfid  night,  just  as  an  unusually  clear,  transparent,  and 
fogless  ail"  betokens  rain.  Remember  the  beautiful  N. 
N.,  and  also  her  yoimgest  sister.  In  the  mean  time,  the 
cliai-ming,  sun-vai'iegated  dew-drop  under  Xadine's  eye 
was  balanced  by  a  waii,  of  half  the  size,  the  sohtaii-e 
among  her  personal  charms. 

TVilhelmi's  lyric  and  dithyrambic  head  was  filled  with 
projects  for  pleasure,  and  with  the  eagerness  of  delight. 


CAMPANER    THAL.  21 

he  demanded  a  hasty  determination  concerning  the  proper 
use  and  enjoyment  of  the  day.  "  O  yes,"  said  I,  quickly  and 
impertinently,  "life  flies  to-day  on  a  minute-hand,  like 
an  alarum  it  winds  off;  but  how  shall  we  form  a  plan,  a 
good  plan  ?  "  Nadine,  who  had  arranged  everything  be- 
forehand with  the  bridegroom,  replied :  "  I  think  we  need 
none  for  such  a  delightful  day,  and  such  a  charming  val- 
ley. We  will  pilgrimize  carelessly  along  the  banks  of  the 
Adour,  the  length  of  the  Vale,  and  rest  at  every  new 
flower,  and  at  every  bud,  and  in  the  evening  we  will  sail 
back  by  moonlight !  That  would  be  quite  Arcadian  and 
shepherd-like  in  this  Arcadia.  Will  you  all  ?  You  cer- 
tainly will,  dearest  sister  ?  "  "  O  yes,"  said  Gione,  "  for 
I  think  we  are  as  yet  all  strangers  to  the  charms  of  this 
paradise."  The  Baron  seemed  to  hesitate  before  giving 
his  consent,  and  said:  "It  depends  whether  the  ladies 
can  walk  two  and  a  quarter  miles  in  one  day."  *  I  was 
mad  with  joy,  and  cried,  "  Charming ! "  Such  a  long  hori- 
zontal heaven-journey,  such  a  melodious  Ai-peggio  through 
the  chords  of  delight  was  an  old  innate  wish  of  my  youth. 
I  imparted  my  delight  to  the  Chaplain,  to  whose  feelings 
this  voyage  pitturesqiie  was  as  repugnant  as  a  Good  Fri- 
day procession,  and  to  whom,  instead  of  this  heaven-way, 
that  of  Hoferf  would  have  been  more  acceptable,  because 
he  would  rather  have  remained  at  home  to  read,  and  be- 
cause he  did  not  enjoy  the  Epopee  of  nature  as  a  man, 
nor  scan  it  as  a  naturalist,  but  like  an  usher,  separated 
and  divided  it,  for  practice  in  building  up  again.  I  said 
to  him :  "  If  we  two  will  be  shepherds,  representing  the 

*  French  miles.  The  valley  is  about  two  German  miles  —  ten 
English  miles  —  long. 

t  The  Hofersche  heaven-path,  or  how  to  learn  the  way  to  eternal 
salvation  in  twenty-four  hours. 


22  CAMPANER    THAL. 

old  Myrtil  and  Phylax,  it  would  be  interesting.  You 
know  best  that  whims  should  be  ten  times  less  bold  before 
ladies  and  refined  ears  than  on  print,  and  that  for  such 
people  it  has  to  be  filtered  through  so  many  filtering- 
papers  and  strainers,  that  I  would  not  give  a  proof-sheet 
for  it  after  the  process." 

A  hired  country-house,  at  the  end  of  the  valley,  was 
the  architectural  Eden  with  which  Wilhelmi  intended  to 
surprise  and  delight  his  bride  in  this  botanic  one.  But 
IS^adine  alone  knew  it. 

In  as  many  moments  as  a  swan  would  take  to  spread 
his  wings  and  rise,  we  were  all  ready.  I  do  not  blame 
man  for  making  prepai'ations  for  the  examination  for 
death,  but  for  no  (shorter)  journey.  The  long  hunt  de- 
stroys the  game  of  enjoyment.  I,  for  my  part,  never 
think  of  starting  until  I  am  on  the  road. 

Wilhelmi  loaded  himself  with  his  bride's  guitai' ;  Karlson 
can-ied  a  portable  ice-cellar.  The  ladies  had  their  para- 
sols ;  the  Chaplain  and  I  had  nothing.  I  whispered  to  the 
shallow  Phylax,  —  so  I  can  now  call  him.  and  myself  the 
old  Myrtil,  —  "  Sii'  Chaplain,  we  rebel  against  all  good 
mannei*s  if  we  follow  empty-handed."  He  inunediately 
offered  himself  to  Gione.  as  pack-horse,  wagon,  and  car- 
rier for  her — parasol.  But  clever  genius  prompted  me  to 
return  to  Karlson's  chamber,  and  bring  two  cushions  from 
the  sofa,  and  I  returned  with  these  twins  in  my  arms ; 
nothing  could  have  been  more  appropriate,  as  the  ladies 
sat  do-svn  a  thousrmd  times  on  the  way,  and  could  not 
have  dipped  their  silken  elbows  in  the  juicy  paint  of  the 
flowers.  To  his  vexation,  Phylax  was  obliged  to  carry 
the  soft  block  in  liis  arms ;  I  hung  the  other  one,  like  a 
stick,  to  my  thumb.     At  last  we  started. 

We   advanced    towards    the    Pvrenees.      Cora-fields, 


CAMPANER    THAL.  23 

waterfalls,  shepherd  huts,  marble  blocks,  woods  and 
grottoes,  animated  by  the  vascular  system  of  the  many- 
branched  Adour,  passed  beautifully  before  our  eyes,  and 
we  were  forced  to  leave  them  behind,  like  the  bright 
years  of  youth  changed  into  dreams  by  the  stern  hand 
of  Time. 

Ah,  Victor,  travelling  alone  is  life,  as  life,  on  the  con- 
trary, is  only  a  journey.  And  if,  like  certain  shell-fish, 
I  could  only  push  myself  on  with  one  foot,  or,  like  sea- 
nettles  and  women,  I  could  only  progress  six  lines  in  a 
quarter  of  an  hour,  or  if  I  lived  under  Fritz  II.  or  Fritz 
I.  (Lycurgus),  who  both  forbade  a  long  journey,  I  would 
make  a  short  one,  that  I  might  not  perish  like  the  loach, 
which  languishes  in  every  vessel,  if  not  shaken. 

How  spirited,  how  poetical,  how  inventive  can  we  not 
be  while  we  run  onwards.  As  Montaigne,  Eousseau,  and 
the  sea-nettle  only  shine  when  they  move  on.  By  Heaven ! 
it  is  no  wonder  that  man  rises  and  will  go  on ;  for  does 
not  the  sun  follow  the  pedestrian  from  tree  to  tree  ?  does 
not  its  reflected  likeness  swim  after  him  in  the  water  ?  do 
not  landscapes,  mountains,  hills,  men,  rapidly  changing, 
come  and  go  ?  and  does  not  Freedom's  breath  blow  on 
the  ever-varying  Eden,  when,  released  from  the  neck  and 
heart-breaking  chains  of  narrow  circumstances,  we  fly  freely 
and  gladly,  as  in  dreams,  over  ever-new  scenes. 

For  unfortunately  the  bell-glass  over  men  and  melons, 
which  at  first  is  covered  by  a  broken  bottle,  must  always 
be  raised  higher  and  higher,  and  at  last  removed  entirely. 
At  first,  a  man  will  go  into  the  next  town,  then  to  the 
university,  then  to  an  important  residency,  then  —  if  he 
has  only  written  twenty  lines  —  to  Weimar,  and  finally, 
to  Italy  or  to  heaven.  And  if  the  planets  were  stringed 
together  on  a  cord,  and  near  each  other,  or  if  the  rays  of 


24  CAMPANER    THAL. 

liglit  were  roads,  and  the  atoms  of  light  bridges,  then 
surely  would  post-houses  be  erected  in  Uranus,  and  the 
insatiable  inner  man  —  for  the  outer  one  is  so  very- 
satiable  —  would  go  longing  and  roaming   from   planet 

to  planet.     

Therefore,  my  Victor,  nothing  is  confined  in  so  many 
prison-walls  as  is  this  our  human  self.  And  our  cages 
are  enclosed,  onion-like,  one  in  the  other.  Your  and  my 
self  are  imprisoned  not  only  on  this  earth,  but  in  this 
King's  Bench  are  the  town  walls  ;  in  these  our  four  walls 
surround  us ;  in  the  four  walls,  the  arm-chair  or  the  bed ; 
in  this  again,  the  shirt  or  the  coat,  or  both ;  and  lastly, 
the  body.     And,  to  be  minute  (according  to  Sommering), 

in   the   brain   crevices,   the   duck's   pond.     

Start  at  the  fatal  many-sided  suite  of  houses  of  correction 
which  surround  thjselff     


503^    STATION. 

Lampoon  ox  the  Chaplain.  —  Praise  of  Him.  —  The  Diamond. 
—  Opinions  against  Immortality.  —  Eden  Jokes. 

E  two  fellow-carriers  formed  the  rear-guard. 
I  wished  to  enter  into  discourse,  but  Phylax 
had  a  very  poor  opinion  of  me ;  at  most 
he  thought  me  a  fickle  sentimentalist  who 
only  portrays  feelings.  Yet  feelings  are  the  sponge 
of  atmospheric  air,  which  the  poet,  on  his  high  Par- 
nassus, as  well  as  the  philosophical  diver  in  his  depths, 
must  hold  in  his  mouth,  and  yet  poetry  has  cast  an 
earlier  light  on  many  obscure  works  of  nature  than 
philosophy,  as  the  dark  7iew  mooti  borrows  light  from 
Venus. 

But  the  philosopher  sins  against  poets  more  than  you 
sin  against  the  followers  of  Kant,  from  whom  you  seem 
to  expect  that  they  shall  write  pleasingly.  Your  argu- 
ments are  ideas,  not  reasonings,  when  you  say  that  phi- 
losophy's attendants  are  like  those  of  Turkish  ladies,  mute, 
black,  and  deformed  ;  that  the  philosophical  market-place 
is  a  forium  morionum,*  and  that  beauty  is  forbidden  to 
philosophers,  as  it  was  to  the  Helots,  who  were  killed  for 
possessing  it.     Is  it  not  evident  that  a  certain  barbarous, 

*  A  market-place  in  Rome  where  deformed  beings  were  sold,  and 
fetched  a  higher  price  the  uglier  they  were. 


26  CAMPANER    THAL. 

un-German,  far-fetched  language  is  more  an  ornament 
than  a  detriment  to  it.  Oracles  despise  grace,  vox  dei 
soloecismus,  i.  e.  a  Kantist  cannot  be  read,  —  he  must  be 
studied.  Further,  it  is  not  beneath  a  philosopher  to  en- 
rich the  language  instead  of  the  science.  For  some  other 
may  seek  the  ideas  for  the  terms,  and  find  them,  as  ani- 
mals were  found  for  the  Ammonites.  Therefore  the 
Greeks  have  the  same  term  for  word  and  knowledge, 
which  combination  was  at  last  deified.  The  philosopher 
should  always  write  over  liis  door  pour  Voudalgie,*  in- 
stead of  "  here  lives  a  dentist."  This  is  the  best  reason, 
except  a  second  one,  why  the  philosopher,  especially  the 
Kantist,  as  I  saw  in  Phylax,  needs  not  books,  nor  men, 
nor  experience,  nor  chemistry,  botany,  the  fine  arts,  nor 
natural  history.  He  can  and  must  decipher  the  positive, 
the  material,  the  given  number,  the  unknown  X.  He 
creates  the  term,  and  sucks,  as  children  often  do,  —  it 
may  suffocate  them,  —  his  own  blistered  tongue. 

I  must  return  to  the  company  !  As  the  Chaplain  car- 
ried his  walking-stick,  or  rather  walking-tree  of  a  cushion, 
with  the  greatest  indifference  towards  me,  I  wished  to 
prejudice  him  for  me  by  a  panegyric  at  the  expense 
of  Kant.  I  said  to  him :  "  It  surprised  me  that  the 
philosophers  should  have  suffered  Kant  to  have  made 
so  great  a  distinction  between  them  and  artists,  and  only 
allowed  the  merit  of  genius  to  the  latter.  He  says,  in 
§  47  of  his  '  Kritik  der  Urtheilkraft,'  '  In  sciences,  the 
greatest  inventor  is  only  distinguished  from  the  most 
labored  imitator  and  apprentice  by  gradation ;  but  from 
those  whom  nature  has  gifted  for  beautiful  nature,  he 
is  specifically  distinguished.*  This  is  derogatory,  Sir 
Chaplain,  and  besides,  not  true.  Why  can  Kant,  then, 
*  A  Parisian  dentist  wrote  this  over  liis  door. 


CAMPANER    THAL.  27 

only  make  Kantists,  but  no  Kants  ?  *  Are  new  systems 
discovered  by  syllogisms,  yet  they  are  proved  and  tried 
by  them  ?      Can,  then,  the  connection  of  a  new  philo- 

*  In  the  same  §  Kant  says:  "  Everything  that  Newton  has  written 
in  his  immortal  Princijna,  though  such  a  large  head  was  required  to 
invent  it,  can  be  learned;  but  to  compose  spirited  poems  cannot  be 
taught,  however  complete  the  instructions  for  learning  the  art  may  be. 
The  reason  is,  that  Newton  can  explain  all  the  steps  he  had  to  take, 
from  the  first  elements  of  geometry  to  his  grandest  and  most  profound 
inventions ;  he  can  explain  them,  not  alone  to  himself,  but  to  others, 
even  to  the  remote  descendants,  while  no  Homer  or  Wieland  can  show 
how  his  ideally  rich,  and  yet  thoughtful  characters,  came  forth  from 
his  brain;  for  he  knows  it  not  himself,  and  therefore  cannot  teach  it 
others." 

I  had  hoped  that  I  could  depend  upon  Kant,  who  has  a  million  times 
more  intelligence  than  I  have,  as  upon  a  mental   Charge  d' Affaires ; 
but  when  I  came  to  this  passage  (and  to  those  upon  repentance, 
music,  the  origin  of  evil,  &c.),  I  saw  I  must  myself  follow  him,  and 
not  only  pray  after  him,  as  I  had  before  done,  but  reflect.     But  to 
return!    Certainly  Newton's  "  Principles  "  can  be  learned,  that  is,  the 
new  ones  may  be  repeated,  but  that  also  can  happen  to  the  invented 
poems;  yet  you  can  be  taught  to  invent  them  as  little  as  Newton's 
Principles.     A  new  philosophic  idea  seems,  after  its  birth,  to  lie  more 
clearly  in  its  former  seed-vessels  and  organic  molecules  than  a  poetic 
one;  but  why  was  Newton  the  first  to  see  it?     He  and  Kant  can  dis- 
cover, no  better  than  Shakespeare  or  Leibnitz,  how  the  beginning  of  a 
new  idea  suddenly  bursts  from  the  cloud  of  old  ones ;  they  can  show 
their  Nexus  (else  they  would  not  be  human  ones)  with  the  old  ones, 
but  not  their  conception  from  it;  the  same  holds  of  the  poetic.     Let 
Kant  teach  us  to  invent  systems  and  truths  (not  to  prove  them,  though, 
strictly  speaking,  the  one  is  closely  allied  to  the  other),  then  he  shall 
be  taught  to  invent  epics,  and  I  will  be  responsible  for  it.     He  seems 
to  me  to  confound  the  difficulty  of  forming  ideas  with  the  less  impor- 
tant one  of  forming  new  ones;  the  difficulty  of  transition  with  the 
inexplicability  of  the  matter.    I  fear  and  wonder  at  the  latent  almighti- 
ness  with  which  man  orders,  that  is,  creates  his  range  of  ideas.     I 
know  no  better  symbol  of  creation  than  the  regularity  and  causality 
of  the  creation  of  ideas  in  us,  which  no  will  and  no  mind  can  regulate 
and  create,  for  any  such  aiTangement  and  intention  would  presuppose 
the  unborn  idea.    And  in  this  creation  the  grand  enigma  of  our  moral 
freedom  is  veiled. 


28  CAMPANEe    THAL, 

sophical  idea  with  the  old  one  better  explain  or  facilitate 
its  comprehension  than  the  same  coimection  which  each 
new  poetic  one  must  have  with  old  ones,  which  are  the 
means  of  its  creation.  Sir  Chaplain,  I  know  not  whom 
Kant  has  most  sinned  against,  Truth,  himself,  or  his- 
school.  Leibnitz's  '  Monadology,'  harmonia  prcEstahilita, 
&c.,  are  as  much  pure,  brilliant  emanations  of  genius,  as 
any  beaming  form  in  Shakespeare  or  Homer.  Besides, 
Leibnitz  is  a  genial  almighty  Demiurg  in  the  philosophi- 
cal world,  its  greatest  and  first  circumnavigator,  and  who, 
happier  than  Archimedes,  found  in  his  genius  the  standing- 
point  from  which  he  might  move  the  philosophical  uni- 
versa,  and  play  with  worlds.  He  was  an  extraordinary 
spirit,  he  threw  new  chains  on  the  earth,  but  he  himself 
bore  none  :  I  think  you  agree  with  me.  Sir  Chaplain  ! " 
He  replied.  He  did  not,  that  the  critical  philosophy  knew 
what  to  make  of  Leibnitz's  experiments,  his  immaterial 
world,  the  asserted  approximation  of  the  definite  to  the 
indefinite  line,  and  how  to  honor  genius.  In  short,  I  had 
rather  angered  than  conquered  him. 

Karlson,  whom  even  Amor's  torch  could  not  blind  to 
the  philosopliical  one,  took  as  much  interest  in  our  war  as 
could  be  taken  with  the  ears.  Fortunately  we  all  stood 
still.  A  small  diamond  had  fallen  from  Nadine's  neck- 
lace, and  she  sought  for  the  silver  petrified  spark  in  the 
grass.  Strange  that  a  man  always  hopes  to  find  a  thing 
on  the  spot  where  he  perceives  his  loss.  Nadine  looked 
for  her  hardened  dew-drop  on  the  sparkling,  spangled 
mead.  As  a  bright  diamond  of  the  first  water,  it  was  so 
easily  mistaken  for  a  dew-drop,  that  I  remarked,  seeing 
one  in  Nadine's  breast-rose,  "*Everything  is  covered  with 
soft  diamonds,  and  who  will  find  the  hard  one  ?  The  dew 
in  your  rose  sparkles  as  brightly  as  the  lost  stone."     She 


CAMPANER    THAL.  29 

looked  down,  and  in  tlie  rose-cup  lay  the  sought-for  gem ! 
It  was  thought  I  had  been  clever,  and  I  was  angry  with 
myself  for  having  been  so  stupid.  But  Nadine  liked  me 
no  less  for  it,  and  that  was  reward  enough. 

As  the  Adour  bent,  not  an  arm,  but  a  finger,  around 
this  gay  moss-bank  and  bees'  sugar-field,  the  whole  com- 
pany sat  among  the  bees  and  the  flowers,  and  the  cushion- 
bearers  laid  down  their  burdens.  Nadine  said,  playfully, 
"  If  flowers  have  souls,  the  bees,  whose  nurses  they  are, 
must  seem  to  them  like  dear  sucking  children."  "  They 
have,"  said  Karlson,  "  souls  like  frozen  window  flowers, 
or  like  the  tree  of  Petit,*  which  I  once  showed  to  you,  or 
like  pyramids  of  alum."  "  O,  you  always  destroy,  sir," 
said  Gione.  "  Nadine  and  I  once  painted  to  ourselves  an 
elysium  for  the  souls  of  faded  flowers."  "  I  believe  in  a 
middle  path  for  flowers  after  their  death,"  said  Wilhelmi, 
seriously ;  "  the  souls  of  lilies  probably  go  into  woman's 
forehead ;  hyacinth  and  forget-me-not  souls  into  woman's 
eyes,  and  rose  souls  into  lips  and  cheeks."  I  added,  "  It 
is  a  fortunate  coincidence  for  this  hypothesis,  that  a  girl 
has  perceptibly  more  color  from  the  departing  soul  at  the 
moment  when  she  breaks  or  kills  a  rose." 

Joyfully  and  affectionately  we  continued  our  journey. 
Only  into  my  carrier-companion  the  souls  of  thistles  and 
sloes  seemed  to  have  entered.  This  play  of  ideas  and 
this  poUteness  in  argument  provoked  him.  Only  Karlson 
pleased  him. 

At  last  the  Chaplain  said  to  me  :  "  No  immortality  but 
that  of  moral  beings  can  be  discussed,  and  with  them  it  is 
a  postulate  or  apprenticeship  of  practical  sense.  For  as 
a  full  conformity  of  the  human  will  to  the  moral  law,  with 

*  Gold  dissolved  in  strong  acid,  mixed  with  a  small  quantity  of 
quicksilver  in  a  vial,  forms  a  tree  with  foliage. 


3©  CAMPANER    THAI. 

which  the  just  Creator  never  can  dispense,  is  quite  unat- 
tainable by  a  finite  being,  an  eternally  continuing  pro- 
gress, i.  e.  an  unceasing  duration,  must  contain  and  prove 
this  conformity  in  God's  eyes,  who  overlooks  the  everlast- 
ing course.     Therefore  our  immortality  is  necessary." 

Karlson  stood  still  at  Gione's  side,  that  we  might  ap- 
proach, and  said ;  "  Dear  philosopher,  pray  take  from  this 
proof  the  boldness  or  the  indistinctness  which  it  has  for 
laymen.  How  can  we  imagine  the  supervision,  i.  e.  the 
termination,  of  an  infinite,  a  never-ending  course  ?  or 
how  will  you  make  the  eternity  of  time  harmonize  with 
the  eternity  of  the  moral  requirements.  How  can  a 
righteousness,  scattered  and  dispersed  over  an  intermina- 
ble period  of  time,  satisfy  Divine  Justice,  which  must 
require  this  righteousness  in  each  portion  of  the  period. 
And  has  the  constant  approximation  of  man  towards  this 
state  of  purity  been  proved  ?  And  will  not  the  number, 
if  not  the  grossness  of  faults,  in  this  infinite  space,  in- 
crease with  the  number  of  virtues  ?  And  what  compari- 
son will  the  list  of  faults  bear  to  that  of  the  virtues  at  the 
examination  ?  But  let  us  leave  that  also.  Will,  in  the 
sight  of  the  Divine  eye,  the  moral  purity  of  two  different 
beings  —  for  instance,  a  seraph  and  a  man,  or  of  two  differ- 
ent men,  as  Robespierre  and  Socrates  —  be  equally  con- 
tained in  two  equally  long,  i.  e.  eternal,  courses  of  time  ? 
If  on  comparing  the  two,  a  difference  appear,  then  one  of 
them  cannot  have  attained  the  so-called  perfection,  and 
must  still  be  mortal." 

The  Chaplain  answered  :  "  But  Kant  does  not  intend  to 
demonstrate  immortality  by  this  argument.  He  says 
even,  that  it  has  been  left  so  uncertain  in  order  that  free, 
pure  will,  and  no  selfish  views,  shall  prompt  our  aspirations 
to  immortality."     "  Strange,"  said  Karlson.    "  But  as  we 


CAMPANER    THAL.  31 

have  now  discovered  this  intention,  its  object  would  be 
defeated.  Philosophers  ought  then  to  imitate  me,  and 
attack  immortaUtj  to  the  advantage  of  virtue.  It  is  a 
strange  axiom  to  presuppose  the  truth  of  an  opinion  from 
its  indemonstrability.  Either  immortality  can  be  proved, 
then  one  half  of  your  argument  is  right,  or  it  cannot,  then 
the  whole  of  it  is  wrong.  Besides,  if  the  belief  in  im- 
mortality makes  virtue  selfish,  the  experience  of  it  in  the 
next  world  would  make  it  more  so.  Does  the  belief  in  it 
deter  the  common  man  from  doing  what  his  confessor  for- 
bids, and  forgives  him  ?  As  little  as  the  first  stroke  of 
apoplexy  deters  the  drunkard  from  rushing  to  the  second." 


the  sam 


504***    STATION. 

FUOWEE   TOITXG. 

ARLSON  joined    the   others  in   conversation, 
ind  Phylax  was  enraged  that  he  could  not  tri- 
r    •  .  —  not  even  dispute.     I  said  to  him,  that 
ir. ions   a^eed   with  his,  though  not  on 
:.:.  uniting,  we  would  subsequent- 
!v  :  _  „  :.:  I  uTtack  Karlson. 

I  -7   --^irn  club  to  Xadine.  and  on  a 

-ving  light-magnets,  the  shining 
-    -      -         -         .    _   :.  :h-^    I:-  "rn    -lowworms  which 
--      ■  .^  :  :   vT    r  :.  ■  ;    ;-  .      I      ;  ;  [i  box  with  them 

:  :  .:  :  :   _       C :  ance  had  roman- 

:■::.--        l:  _   :         -  y-i.  graceful  bluebells, 

on  ■?,   _-:r  :.  ::    :    .:  rr:  its  foliage  had  the 

:'  :k  glowworms;*  the 

l:^- -   -       _  -        -  "  en  :ne  pale,  ripe 

loses;  long-legged,  sL       _    _  .g  OTer  the 

tfaoms;  the  f.  -  vrs  ^zi-  neeiiiy  *j:casure-diggers,  the 
bees,  covered  :..t  -..-e-cups  with  new  thorns;  the  but- 
terflies, like  moving  tints,  like  Epicurean  colors,  gently 
floated  loimd  the  branch's  gay  world.  I  cannot  tell  you 
how  this  glance,  tomed  frcHn  the  vast  whole  on  to  a  bean- 
tifbl  small  portion,  gave  a  warmer  glow  to  our  hearts  and 
*  The  nude  ^wwonns  axe  blade 


CAMPANER    THAL.  33 

to  nature.  Instead  of  the  hand,  we  could  only  hold,  like 
children,  the  fingers  of  the  great  mother  of  Hfe,  and  rev- 
erently kiss  them.  By  the  creation,  God  became  human 
for  men,  as  therefore  for  angels  an  angel,  —  like  the  sun 
whose  bright  immensity  the  painter  gently  divides  into 
the  beauties  of  a  human  face. 

Wilhelmi  said,  that,  to  rise  into  Eden  or  Arcadia,  he 
would  need  no  larger  wings  than  the  four  of  a  butterfly. 
What  a  poetical,  paradisaical  existence,  like  the  papilio, 
to  roam  without  stomach  or  hunger,  among  buds  and 
flowers,  to  suflfer  no  long  night,  no  winter,  and  no  storm, 
to  toy  away  one's  life  in  a  delightful  chase  for  another 
papiho,  or  to  nestle,  like  the  flower-colored  bird  of  para- 
dise, among  lemon-blossoms,  to  float  round  blooming 
honey-cups,  and  to  be  rocked  in  silken  cradles ! 

Blissfully  we  proceeded  on  our  way,  and  each  new  step 
drove  an  exciting  blood-drop  to  our  warmed  hearts.  I 
said  to  the  Chaplain,  that  the  temple  of  nature  had  been 
changed  into  a  concert-hall  for  me,  and  every  vocal  into 
instrumental  music.  Victor  !  should  not  philosophy  and 
the  philosophers  imitate  electric  bodies,  which  not  only 
enlighten,  but  also  attract  ?  The  soul's  wine  will  indeed 
ever  taste  of  the  bodily  barrel-hoops,  but  the  soul  is  scarce- 
ly spirit-like  enough  only  to  serve  as  a  body  to  another 
soul. 


•2* 


5o5^    STATION. 

The  Ephemera.  —  Eelatite  Cokclusioxs.  —  Doubts  of  the 
Length  of  the  Chain  of  Living  Beings.  —  The  Waet-Eat- 
EKs.  —  The  Cuke. 


HE    sun   and   the  valley  surrounded  us  with 

their  burning-glasses,  and  it  was  pleasant  to  sit 

J  j  down  in  a  shady  spot,  and  eat ;  and  as  just 

-^ '  opposite  to  us  was  a  marble-quarry,  and  close 


to  the  iron  rock-wall  a  sap-green  meadow,  and  beside  us 
a  group  of  elms  and  a  little  shining  solitary  white  house, 
we  asked  at  it  for  as  much  food  as  a  roaming,  contented 
quintet  requires.  The  mistress  of  the  house  was  alone, 
the  husband  was  at  work  (as  most  Campanians  are,  in 
Spain),  four  children  waited  on  us;  our  ice-cellar  was 
opened,  and  with  its  contents  the  soul  was  warmed  and 
the  body  cooled.  The  white  glowing  keystone  of  the 
heaven  arch  awoke  with  its  flames  the  noonday  wind, 
which  slept  on  the  cold  summit  of  the  Pyrenees. 

Little  or  nothing  would  taste  well  to  poor  Phylax,  to 
whom  it  was  more  important  to  prove  that  he  would  be 
eternal.  Fortunately,  the  French  wine  armed  him  more 
with  French  customs,  and  he  asked  the  Baron  politely : 
"  I  believe  I  owe  M.  Ivarlson  some  proofs  of  our  immor- 
tality. Might  I  be  allowed  to  give  them  ? "  Wilhelmi 
sent  him  to   Gione,  saying,    ••  Ask  there."     Gione  will- 


CAMPANER    THAL.  35 

ingly  granted  his  request,  and  said,  "  Why  should  not 
recollections  of  immortality  ornament  our  joys  as  much 
as  monuments  do  English  gardens  ? "  Nadine  threw  in 
the  question,  "  But  if  men  quarrel  about  the  hopes  of 
humanity,  what  remains  for  women  ?  "  "  Her  heart  and 
its  hopes,  Nadine,"  said  Gione.  Wilhelmi  said,  smiling  : 
"  The  owl  of  Minerva,  as  all  other  owls,  is  said  to  fore- 
bode destruction  to  a  household,  by  settling  on  its  roof. 
But  I  hope  it  is  not  so."  I  added,  "  The  lives  of  all  our 
beloved  ones  are  tied  to  the  obelisk  of  immortality,  as 
to  that  of  Rameses,*  that  the  danger  may  double  our 
strength ;  for  they  will  be  destroyed  if  it  rebound." 

In  the  mean  time,  Karlson  had  taken  an  ephemeral  fly 
from  a  neighboring  elm,  to  which  it  had  clung,  in  order  to 
cast  off  its  super  body  before  death.  The  ephemera 
should  not  be  an  embodiment  of  our  immortality,!  but  of 
our  unfolding ;  for,  unlike  other  insects,  after  all  its  trans- 
formations, and  when  already  furnished  with  wings,  it 
changes  its  shape  once  more  before  death.  He  held  it  be- 
fore us,  and  said :  "  In  my  opinion,  a  philosophical  ephem- 
era would  argue  thus.  What !  I  should  have  uselessly 
accomplished  all  my  various  changes,  and  the  Creator  had 
no  other  intention  in  calling  me  from  the  egg  to  the  grub, 
then  to  a  chrysalis,  and  at  last  to  a  flying  being,  whose 
wings  must  burst  another  covering  before  death,  with  this 
long  range  of  spiritual  and  corporeal  developments,  he 
should  have  had  no  other  aim  than  a  six  hours'  existence, 

*  Eameses  caused  his  son  to  be  fastened  to  the  topmost  point  of  an 
obelisk,  that  they  who  had  to  raise  it  should  risk  a  more  valuable  life 
than  their  own. 

t  It  lives  more  than  two  years,  though  it  does  not  long  survive  the 
period  of  its  leaving  the  grub-state,  just  as  other  insects,  to  whom 
nature  has  given  the  rose  period  of  youth,  only  oj'ttr  the  thorny  age 
of  reproduction. 


36  CAAfPANER    THAL. 

and  the  grave  must  be  the  only  goal  of  so  long  a  long  a 
course  ?  "  The  Chaplain  opportunely  answered,  "  Your 
argument  proves  against  yourself,  for  it  is  petitio  principii 
to  presuppose  mortality  amongst  ephemera." 

I  confess  I  am  an  enemy  to  these  relative  conclusions, 
because  they  take  as  much  from  truth  as  they  give  to 
eloquence,  for  contrary  opinions  can  be  proved  by  them. 
To  one  whose  eyes  are  hurt  by  a  grain  of  sand,  I  can 
prove  that  he  is  comparatively  happy,  as  there  are  many 
in  the  world  who  suffer  from  sand-blisters  and  gravel ; 
and  also  that  he  is  unfortunate,  as  Sultanic  eyes  are  never 
pressed  by  anything  harder  than  Circassian  eyelids  —  or 
two  rosy  lips.  Thus  I  can  make  the  world  immense  in 
comparison  to  bullets,  grains  of  poison,  or  round  puddings, 
or  minute,  if  placed  beside  Jupiter,  the  sun,  or  the  milky- 
way.  If  the  ephemera  on  the  ladder  of  existence  would 
turn  its  back  on  the  brilliant  development  of  the  beings 
above  it,  and  only  count  the  important  ones  on  the  steps 
beneath  it,  it  would  increase  in  its  own  importance.  In 
short,  our  oratorical  fantasy  continually  mistakes  the 
distinction  between  more  and  less  for  that  of  something 
or  nothing ;  but  every  relative  conclusion  must  be  based 
on  something  positive,  which  only  eternal  eyes,  which  can 
measure  the  whole  range  of  innumerable  degrees,  can  truly 
weigh.  Indeed,  there  must  be  some  bodily  substance, 
and  were  it  even  the  earth  ;  for  every  comparison,  every 
measurement,  presupposes  a  fixed,  unchanging  stand- 
ard. Therefore,  the  ephemeral  development  is  a  true 
one,  and  the  conclusions  on  it  are  the  same  as  on  a  se- 
raphic one.  The  difference  in  the  degrees  can  only  bring 
forth  relative,  not  opposite  conclusions.  And  here,  in  this 
letter  —  for  in  print  I  would  not  dare  to  do  it  —  I  will 
acknowledge  a  doubt.     No  one  has  ever  seen  the  steps  of 


CAMPANER    THAL.  37 

the  ladder  of  beings  above  us,  —  no  one  has  counted  those 
beneath  us.  What  if  the  former  were  less,  the  latter 
greater,  than  we  have  hitherto  imagined.  The  eternal 
promotion  of  souls  from  angels  to  archangels,  in  short,  the 
nine  philosophical  hierarchies  have  only  been  asserted,  but 
not  proved.  The  common  opinion,  that  the  immense  dif- 
ference between  man  and  the  Eternal  must  be  filled  up 
by  a  chain  of  spiritual  giants,  is  false ;  as  no  chain  can 
shorten  the  distance,  much  less  fill  it,  for  it  will  ever  re- 
tain the  same  width ;  and  the  seraph,  i.  e.  the  highest 
finite  being  according  to  human  thoughts,  must  imagine 
just  as  many,  if  not  more,  beings  above  him,  as  I  do  be- 
neath me.  Astronomy,  this  sawing  machine  of  suns,  this 
ship's  wharf  and  laboratory  of  earths,  would  persuade  us 
that  the  enlargement  of  worlds  and  beings  is  a  sign  of  their 
improvement.  But  over  the  whole  sky  there  hang  only 
earth  and  fire-balls,  and  all  things  on  them,  from  milk-way 
to  milk-way,  are  less  than  the  wishes  and  longings  of  our 
hearts.  Then  why  should  our  earth  alone,  why  not  every 
other  also,  be  progressing  ?  why  should  they,  rather  than 
we,  have  the  start  in  this  inaugural  eternity  ?  In  short,  it 
may  be  disputed  if  in  the  whole  universe  there  are  other 
angels  and  archangels  than  Victor  and  Jean  Paul.  It 
seems  scarcely  credible  to  me.  But  truly  the  melodious 
progression  to  sublime  beings  has  hitherto  been  merely 
taken  for  granted.  I  believe  in  a  harmonious  one,  in  an 
eternal  ascension,  but  in  no  created  culmination. 

I  presume  Karlson  intended  to  answer  my  argument, 
not  on  the  seraphs,  but  on  ephemera,  when  Nadine,  who 
had  borrowed  the  fly  in  order  to  examine  it,  held  it  too 
near  her  eyes,  and  thereby  disturbed  and  extinguished 
our  Mendelssohn-Platonic  conversation.  For  Madame 
Berlier  (such  was  the  noble  name  of  our  temporary  host- 


38.  CAMPANER    THAL. 

ess)  stepped  up  to  Xadine,  and  said :  '•  It  is  a  pitj  for  the 
pain.  You  must  take  the  wart-locust,  I  have  proofs,"  do 
you  understand  ?  It  is  this.  The  so-called  wart-eater,  a 
locust  with  light  brown  spots,  takes  away  a  Avart  in  a  very 
short  time  by  a  single  bite.  Dame  Berlier,  over  whom, 
as  over  most  Southrons,  beauty  had  greater  power  than 
self-love  and  sex,  had  falsely  imagined  that  Nadine 
wished  to  annihilate  the  only  fault  in  her  charming  form 
with  the  fly.  The  Chaplain  had  scarcely  heard  the  wart- 
eater  mentioned,  when  he  vanished  among  the  green,  and 
commenced  a  hunt  for  wart-locu?ts.  I  was  vexed  that  I 
had  known  the  remedy  as  well  as  Dame  Berlier,  and 
never  thought  of  it.  For  a  shabby  simile  I  should  have 
easily  recollected  it,  but  not  for  a  useful  cure.  Fortune 
permitted  him  soon  to  return  with  the  winged  wart-opera- 
tor ;  this  excited  my  envy.  TThen  he  gave  it  to  Nadine, 
the  oflicious  Phylax  had  squeezed,  with  the  letter  and 
paper  press  of  his  hands,  like  in  a  good  calendar-press,  the 
brown  spotted  vegetable-eater  to  —  death.  The  animal 
could  bite  no  more  ;  I  immediately  darted  off  in  search  of 
another,  and  soon  returned,  holding  one  by  the  tips  of  its 
wings,  and  said,  I  would  myself  hold  it  over  the  wart  until 
he  would  operate  on  it.  'While  performing  the  action  I 
praised  it.  Every  great  deed,  I  said,  is  only  accomplished 
in  the  soul,  at  the  moment  of  determination ;  when  it 
comes  outward  and  is  repeated  by  the  body,  —  which 
holds  the  locust,  —  it  disperses  into  insignificant  move- 
ments and  thirds ;  bat  when  it  is  done,  as  now  the  opera- 
tion, it  becomes  great  again,  and,  ever  increasing,  flows 
onward  through  all  time.  Thus  the  Rhine  rushes  like  a 
giant  from  its  summit,  disperses  in  the  fog,  falls  as  rain 
upon  the  plain,  then  it  forms  itself  into  clouds,  and  roams 
over  the  sands,  and  carries  suns  mstead  of  rainbows. 


CAMPANER    THAL.  39 

It  need  not  be  concealed  from  jou  that  it  affected  me 
to  look  into  the  retina  of  two  such  bright  and  warm,  up- 
turned eyes,  without  mentioning  the  whole  warlike  array 
of  curls  and  lips,  and  forehead,  and  the  Waterloo  land- 
scapes of  the  cheeks.  Nadine's  terror  at  the  teeth  of  the 
brown  little  doctor  made  her  more  charming,  and  the 
danger  of  my  situation  greater.  After  holding  it  for 
some  time,  when  I  thought  the  operation  was  finished,  she 
told  me  the  locust  had  not  yet  touched  her,  as  I  held  it 
two  or  three  Parisian  feet  too  far  from  the  wart.  It  is 
true,  I  had  lost  myself  in  her  net  skin ;  but  I  remarked 
that  the  cure  could  not  be  accomplished,  if  I  did  not  rest 
the  ball  of  my  right  hand  slightly  on  her  cheek,  in  order 
to  hold  the  wart-eater  more  firmly  over  the  wart.  Now 
he  bit  the  required  wound,  and  propelled  into  it  as  much 
of  his  corrosive  fluid  as  he  carried  with  him.  I  artfully 
diverted  Nadine's  pain,  which  resembled  that  of  a  pin 
pricking,  by  philosophizing.  Man,  I  said,  finds  the  stoic 
theory  true  and  forcible  for  all  pain,  only  not  for  the  pres- 
ent. And  when  he  bleeds  from  cut  wounds,  he  imagines 
bruises  heal  more  easily.  He  therefore  defers  his  prac- 
tice of  the  stoic-school  until  his  own  schooling  is  over. 
O,  but  then  he  stands  by  a  running  stream,  waiting  until 
the  waters  shall  have  passed.  True  firmness  bears  the 
bite  of  a  locust,  and  rejoices  at  the  trial ! 

Now  the  operation  was  happily  accomplished,  which 
could  easily  excite  an  illness  in  me.  It  is  true  that  her 
countenance  had  inflicted  a  deeper  w^ound  on  me  than  the 
wart-eater  upon  it,  —  I  should  fear  and  examine  whether 
mine,  which  was  just  as  near  to  hers,  had  done  as  much 
damage ;  but  Nadine  is  exceedingly  —  young.  The  hearts 
of  young  girls,  like  new  waterbutts,  at  first  let  everything 
drop  through,  until  in  time,  the  vessels  swell  and  thus  re- 
tain their  contents. 


5o6^^   STATION 


Objections  to  Immortality.  —  The  Second  Childhood  of  the 
Outer  and  Inner  Man. 


E  broke  up  and  proceeded.  On  high,  light 
feathers  floated  through  the  sky,  hke  the  loose- 
flowing  hair  of  the  sun.  which  could  not  veil 
it.  The  day  became  hotter  and  stiller.  But 
our  path  lay  beneath  a  green  roof,  and  each  branch  spread 
over  us  a  parasol  of  broad  fresh  leaves. 

Gione  asked,  '•  Can  we  not  continue  our  conversation 
in  walking  ? "  0,  your  Clotilde  should  know  her ;  she 
has,  excepting  her  charms,  half  her  soul.  No  discord  ex- 
ists between  her  outer  and  inner  harmony ;  her  earnest, 
generous  soul  resembles  the  palm-ti*ee,  which  has  neither 
bark  nor  branches,  but  which  bears  broad  foliage  and  buds 
on  its  summit.  **  Gione,"  said  Xadine,  "  these  arguments 
unsettle  our  minds,  instead  of  removing  our  doubts." 
"  No  one,"  she  replied,  "  has  yet  given  his  opinion  ;  if  we 
even  have  the  firmest  convictions,  still  by  their  beautiful 
conformity  with  another's  convictions  our  own  become 
more  beautiful  and  firm."'  ''  Just  as  water-plants,  surround- 
ed by  their  water,  are  yet  as  much  refreshed  by  rain  as 
land  plants  are,"  said  Myrtil  (I  am  Myrtil). 

Wilhelmi  said,  just  as  we  were  passing  through  the 
Midsummer's-day  uight  of  a  grotto  cooled  by  oakshade 


CAMPANER    THAL.  4I 

and  cascades  :  "  Our  conversation  would  better  suit  a  total 
eclipse  of  the  sun.  I  would  that  I  could  see  one,  when 
the  moon  hangs  beauteously  before  the  midday  sun,  when 
the  noisy  day  is  suddenly  hushed,  when  the  nightingales 
sing,  the  flowers  fade,  and  when  nightly  mists  and  shud- 
dering cold  and  dew  fall."  Phylax  had  now  let  slip  his 
sofa-cushion  into  a  murmuring  spring  ;  Nadine  saw  it,  and, 
not  to  confuse  him  in  the  act  of  drawing  it  out,  she,  with 
charming  zeal,  drove  us  back  to  our  conversation.  Her 
intercourse  wuth  the  world  had  given  her  a  playful,  light, 
ever-joyous  exterior.  But  Gione's  style,  like  the  highest 
Grecian,  is,  artistically  speaking,  somewhat  meagre  and 
spare,  —  and  the  ball-rooms  had  made  her,  as  mahogany 
presses  make  dresses,  more  agreeable.  But  her  exterior 
charms  did  not  contradict  or  injure  her  interior  beauty. 

I  said  to  Karlson,  "  Pray,  prove  to  us  the  spiritual 
mortality,  this  soul's  death."  "  M.  Karlson  needs  not  do 
that,"  answered  the  stupid  Phylax,  vexed  at  the  wet  cush- 
ion, "only  the  assertor  must  prove." 

"  Very  well,"  I  said,  "  I  call  proofs  objections,  but  I 
shall  certainly  give  you  only  two ;  —  firstly,  the  proof  or 
objection :  the  simultaneous  decay  and  destruction  of  the 
body  and  of  the  soul ;  secondly,  the  absolute  impossibility 
of  ascertaining  the  mode  of  life  of  a  future  existence,  or 
as  the  Chaplain  would  say,  to  see  into  the  spiritual  world 
from  the  sensuous  one.  Now,  M.  Karlson,  throw  your 
two  bombs  into  the  greatest  possible  angles,  which,  accord- 
ing to  Hennert,  is  40  degrees,  but  according  to  Bezout, 
43  degrees." 

He  aimed  well.  He  showed  how  the  spiritual  Dryad 
flowered,  burst  and  dispersed  with  the  corporeal  bark,  how 
the  noblest  impulses  are  chained  to  the  lead  —  earth,  re- 
volving wheel  of  the  body ;  how  memory,  imagination, 


42  CAMPANER    THAL. 

and  madness  only  feed  on  the  egg-yolk  of  the  brain,  — 
how  bravery  and  mildness  stand  in  as  opposite  degree  to 
blood  as  leeches  and  Jews  ;  *  how,  in  age,  the  inner  and 
outer  man  together  bend  towards  the  grave,  together  pet- 
rify, together,  like  metal  compositions,  slowly  cool,  and  at 
last  together  die ! 

He  then  asked  why,  with  the  continual  experience  that 
every  bodily  down-bending  digs  a  spiritual  wound,  and 
with  this  unceasing  parallel  of  body  and  soul,  we  give  to 
the  latter,  after  death,  everything  which  we  have  seen 
annihilated  in  the  former.  He  said,  and  I  believe  it,  that 
neither  Bonnet's  underbody,  nor  the  incorporated  soul  cor- 
sets of  Plattner  (the  "  second  soul  organ")  can  diminish 
the  difficulty  of  the  question,  for  as  both  soul's  under-gar- 
ments  or  night-gowns  and  pinafores,  always  share,  in  hfe, 
the  good  and  bad  fate  of  the  coarse,  corporeal  coat  and 
martyr-cloak,  and  as  in  us  double-cased  English  watches, 
the  works,  and  the  first  and  second  cases  (Bonnet's  and 
Plattner's)  always  suffered  and  gained  together,  it  would 
be  absurd  to  seek  the  Iliad  of  the  future  world  in  the  nar- 
row hazel-nut  shell  of  the  revived  little  body  which  has 
first  stood  and  fallen  with  the  coarse  outward  one. 

I  then  asked  him  to  aim  his  second  ball  in  the  angle  of 
forty  degrees  also.  I  added,  that  "  I  would  have  begged 
leave  to  give  a  long  parliamentary  speech  on  it,  but  that 
long  speeches  have  a  life  and  reproducing  power,  as,  ac- 
cording to  Reaumur,  long  animals  more  easily  re-form 
themselves,  when  cut,  than  short  ones."  Though  cer- 
tainly it  occurs  to  me,  that  Unzer  says,  tall  persons  do  not 
live  as  long  as  short  ones.  But  Karlson  needed  little 
time  or  power  to  prove  the  uncertainty  of  the  next  world. 

*  It  is  well  known  that  the  sight  of  blood  damps  courage,  and  that 
the  Jews  are  not  permitted  to  eat  blood. 


CAMPAKER    THAL.  43 

The  Sun-land  behind  the  hillocks  of  the  God's  acre,  be- 
hind the  pest-cloud  of  Death,  is  covered  by  a  complete, 
an  impenetrable  darkness  of  twelve  inches,  or  of  as  many- 
holy  nights.  He  showed,  and  not  badly,  what  an  im- 
mense leap  beyond  all  terrestrial  analogies  and  experiences 
it  is,  to  hope  for,  i.  e.  to  create,  a  world,  a  transcendent 
Arcadia,  a  world  of  which  we  know  neither  copy  nor 
original,  which  wants  no  less  than  a  form  and  a  name, 
map  and  globe,  another  Vespucius  Americus,  of  which 
neither  chemistry  nor  astronomy  can  give  us  the  com- 
pounds or  the  quarters  ;  a  universe  of  air,  on  which,  from 
the  leaf-stripped,  faded  soul,  a  new  body  will  bud  forth, 
i.  e.  a  nothing  on  which  nothing  is  to  embody  itself. 

O,  my  good  Karlson !  how  could  your  noble  soul 
omit  a  second  world  which  is  already  contained  in  this 
physical  first  one,  like  bright  crystals  in  dark  earth, 
namely,  the  sun-world  of  Virtue,  Truth,  and  Beauty* 
glowing  in  our  souls,  whose  golden  vein  inexplicably  ex- 
tends its  ramification  through  the  dark,  dirty  clump  of  the 
sensuous  world. 

It  was  now  my  turn  to  answer  :  "  I  will  lessen  your  two 
difficulties,  and  then  I  will  give  my  innumerable  proofs. 
You  are  no  materialist,t  you  therefore  take  for  granted 
that  bodily  and  mental  activity  only  accompany  and  mu- 
tually excite  each  other.  Yes,  the  body  represents  the 
keys  of  the  inner  Harmonica  through  all  its  scales.  Hith- 
erto only  the  corporeal  outward  signs  have  been  called 
feelings,   as   the   swelling  heart  and  the   slowly-beating 

*  Beauty  in  this  connection,  I  adopt  in  the  same  sense  which  Schil- 
ler gives  to  it  in  his  aesthetic  critique,  a  prize  essay  of  his  genius  on 
Beauty,  which  here,  like  Longinus,  is  at  once  the  subject  and  the 
delineator  of  the  exalted. 

t  If  he  had  been,  I  would  have  read  page  224  in  the  third  part  of 
Hesperus  to  him. 


44  CAMPAXER    THAL. 

pulse  —  longing  ;  the  outpouring  of  gall,  anger,  and  so  on. 
But  the  net-like  texture,  the  anastomy  between  the  inner 
and  outer  man,  is  so  life-full,  so  warm,  that  to  every  pic- 
ture,  every  thought,  —  a  nerve,  a  fibre  must  move.  "We 
should  also  observe,  and  put  into  the  notes  of  speech  all 
the  bodily  after  sounds  of  poetic,  algebraic,  artistic,  nu- 
mismatic, and  anatomic  ideas.  But  the  sounding-board 
of  the  body  is  neither  the  soul's  scale  nor  its  harmony. 
Grief  has  no  resemblance  to  a  tear,  —  shame,  none  to  the 
cheek-imprisoned  blood,  —  wit,  none  to  champagne,  —  the 
idea  of  this  valley,  none  to  its  portrait  on  the  retina.  The 
inner  man,  this  God,  hidden  in  the  statue,  is  not  of  mar- 
ble as  it  is,  but  in  the  stony  limbs,  the  living  ones  grow 
and  ripen  in  an  unknown  life.  We  do  not  sufficiently 
mark  how  the  inner  man  even  tames  and  forms  the  outer 
one ;  how,  for  example,  the  passionate  body  which,  ac- 
cording to  physiology,  should  ever  increase  in  heat,  is 
gradually  cooled  and  extinguished  by  principles,  —  how 
terror,  anger,  holds  the  dividing  texture  of  the  body  in  a 
spiritual  grasp.  When  the  whole  brain  is  paralyzed, 
every  nerve  rusty  and  exhausted,  and  the  soul  carrying 
leaden  weights,  man  needs  but  to  icill  (which  he  can  do 
every  moment),  he  needs  only  a  letter,  a  striking  idea, 
and  the  fibre-work  of  the  souFs  mechanism  proceeds  again 
■without  help  from  the  body." 

Wilhelmi  said,  "  Then  the  soul  is  but  a  watch  which 
winds  itself."  "There  must  always  be  some  perpetvum 
mobile"  I  said,  "  for  all  things  have  moved  for  an  eternity 
akeady.  The  question  is,  either  the  soul  never  winds  off, 
or  it  is  its  own  watchmaker.  I  return  to  the  subject. 
If  a  ruptured  life-vein  in  the  fourth  brain-chamber  of  a 
Socrates  place  the  whole  land  of  his  ideas  and  moral  ten- 
dencies in  a  blood-bath,  these  ideas  and  moral  tendencies 


CAMPANER    THAL.  45 

will  surely  be  covered  with  blood-water,  but  not  spoilt  by 
it ;  because  not  the  drowned  brains  were  virtuous  and 
wise,  but  his  self  was,  and  because  the  dependence  of  a 
watch  on  its  case  for  protection  from  dust,  &c.  does  not 
prove  the  identity  of  the  two,  or  that  the  watch  consists 
only  of  cases.  As  spiritual  exertions  are  not  bodily  ones, 
but  only  precede  or  follow  them ;  and  as  every  spiritual 
activity  leaves  traces,  not  only  in  the  soul,  but  also  in  the 
body ;  must,  then,  if  apoplexy  or  age  destroy  corporeal 
activity,  —  must  the  soul's  fire  be  therefore  quenched?  Is 
there  no  difference  between  the  soul  of  a  childish  old  man, 
and  that  of  a  child  ?  Must  the  soul  of  Socrates,  impris- 
oned in  Borgia's  body  as  in  a  mud-bath,  lose  its  moral 
powers,  and  does  it  suddenly  change  its  virtuous  qualities 
for  vicious  ones  ?  Or  shall  in  left-handed  wedlock  (which 
has  no  common  property  of  body  and  soul)  the  one  con- 
jugal half  only  share  the  gains,  not  also  the  losses  of  the 
other  ?  Shall  the  ablactated  soul  feel  only  the  blooming, 
not  also  the  faded  body  ?  And  if  it  does,  the  earth  sur- 
rounding it  must,  as  our  earth  does  to  the  superior  planets, 
give  it  the  reflection  of  our  advancing  and  retrograding. 
If  we  shall  ever  be  disembodied,  the  slow  hand  of  time, 
that  is,  ever  encroaching  age,  must  do  it.  If  our  course 
is  not  to  be  concluded  in  one  world,  the  gulf  between  it 
and  the  second  must  always  appear  to  us  a  grave.  The 
short  interruption  to  our  progress  by  age,  and  the  longer 
one  by  death,  destroy  this  progress  as  little  as  the  short- 
est interruption  by  sleep.  We  anxiously  suppose  —  as 
the  first  man  did  —  the  total  sun-eclipse  of  sleep  to  be 
the  night  of  death,  and  this  again  the  doomsday  of  the 
world." 

"  That   must  yet   be  proved,   although   I   believe  it," 
replied  Phylax. 


46 


CAMPAXER    THAI. 


New  beauties  prevented  mj  answering,  and  closed  the 
506th  Station. 

(P.  S.  —  I  have  been  told  the  Chaplain  has  declared 
that  he  had  purposely  not  replied  to  several  of  my  argu- 
ments, but  he  hoped  he  could  see  them  in  print,  and  then 
he  would  publish  his  opinions.  But  he  will  scarcely  live 
until  this  letter  is  printed,  and  he  will  answer  it.) 


507*    STATION 


The  Theft  of  the  Souvenir.  —  Answers  to  previous  Stations. 

—  On  the  Emigration  of  the  Dead  to  the  Planets.  —  The 
Threefold  World  in  Man.  —  Grief  without  Hope.  —  The 
Seal  of  Immortality.  —  The  Country-Seat.  —  The  Balloons. 

—  Ecstasy. 

HEN  it  is  three  o'clock,  and  a  wandering  Ar- 
cadian council  is  very  well  but  somewhat 
warm,  when  the  narrowing  Adour,  which  has 
it3  source  at  the  end  of  the  Valley,  flows 
round  a  projecting  tongue  of  land,  and  draws  its  silver 
gauze  cover  over  the  pale  moon  reposing  on  its  breast,* 
when  round  this  slip  of  earth,  this  flowery  anchoring 
place,  half  water  scene,  half  bowling  green,  a  broad- 
leaved  oak  arcade  grows,  beneath  which  trembles  a  sun- 
gilt  shadow,  gliding  from  between  the  branches  of  the 
trees,  on  to  the  grass,  embroidered  by  the  restless,  roving, 
gay-colored  sand,  on  the  book  of  nature  —  its  insects, 
when  the  hammering  in  the  shining  marble  blocks,  the 
living  Alp-horns,  the  bleating  pasture-sheep,  and  the  mur- 
muring of  waves  fill  the  heart  to  its  topmost  branches  and 
up  to  the  brim  with  life-balsam,  and  the  head  with  life- 
spirit  ;  and  when  so  many  beauties  are  heard  and  seen,  — 
livins:  beauties  who  walk  are  inclined  to  sit  down  on  the 


*  The  sun  reflected  in  the  water. 


48  CAMPAXER    THAL. 

slip  of  earth,  after  the  cushion-carriers  have  placed  their 
burdens  as  resting-places  for  their  arms. 

My  dear  Victor  !  all  this  came  to  pass. 

While  sitting,  long  speeches  were  not  as  practicable  as 
while  walking.  Even  before,  when  we,  from  some  dis- 
tance, were  choosing  this  spot  for  a  resting-place,  they  had 
suffered  considerably.  I  remained  on  the  shore  near  Na- 
dine.  whose  cheeks,  reflected  in  the  shadow-painted  waves, 
appeared  a  charming  pale  red.  as  though  a  cochineal  had 
bled  to  death  on  them.  The  walk  and  her  red  pai'asol 
had  been  too  great  colorists. 

My  dear  brother,  I  am  preparing  to  fall  in  love.  The 
operation  on  the  wart  was  unimportant  as  a  corner-piece 
of  vexation,  as  negative  electricity ;  but  warts  have  their 
good  points. 

Xadine  plucked  roses  and  other  flowers.  I  drew  an 
empty  jewel-box  from  my  pocket.  —  it  was  empty,  like  the 
9th  Kurstuhl,  the  Elias  chair,*  or  the  limbus pairum, — 
and  held  it  under  them,  begging  her  to  shake  the  flowers, 
that  I  might  catch  the  millipeds.t  which,  like  tallow  can- 
dles, are  more  suitable  for  the  eye  than  the  nose.  I 
caught  a  whole  germanic  diet  of  these  creatures  from  the 
fragrant  flower-cups,  and  imprisoned  them  in  the  box. 

During  the  flower-toying,  which  brought  us  nearer  to 
each  other,  a  small  cockchafer  fell  on  my  skin.  I  looked 
round  for  tlie  flowers  and  could  find  nothing  till  I  saw, 
protruding  from  Nadine's  left  pocket,  a  souvenir,  filled 
with  sweet-smelling  herbs.  To  steal  from  a  beautiful  wo- 
man is  often  nothing  else  than  to  give  to  her.     I  thought 

*  At  a  circumcision,  the  Jews  place  one  chair  for  the  operator,  and 
another  for  the  prophet  EUas,  who  is  supposed  invisibly  to  occupy  it. 

t  These  animals  shine  by  night.  Care  must  be  taken  not  to  di*aw 
them  into  the  brain  from  the  flower  calyxes  with  the  perfume. 


CAMPANER    THAL.  49 

it  fit,  secretly  to  take  the  scented  pocket-book  in  order  to 
make  a  scent-bottle,  and  a  joke  of  it  in  future.  I  so  ar- 
ranged the  theft,  that  the  Baron  perceived  my  hand,  hold- 
ing the  book,  retreating  from  the  pocket. 

The  souvenir,  thought  I,  may  occasion  some  scene ; 
meanwhile  I  can  smell  at  it.  I  indemnified  her  for  the 
loss  of  the  scent-bag  by  the  millipeds,  whose  prison  I  im- 
mediately insinuated  into  her  pocket.  The  Baron  was 
witness. 

Wilhelmi  said,  when  we  rose  :  "  In  the  evening  we  shall 
be  separated  and  deafened  by  the  carriages.  If  some- 
thing has  yet  to  be  decided  —  " 

"  Something  ?"  rephed  Phylax,  —  "  everything  has  to  be 
decided.  M.  Jean  Paul,  you  have  yet  to  raise  M.  Karl- 
son's  second  difficulty."  "  Raise  ? "  I  asked,  "  I  am  to 
raise  the  cover  of  the  whole  future  world  ?  I  am  but  go- 
ing towards  it,  not  coming  from  it.  But  this  dissimilarity 
between  the  present  and  the  future  world,  its  inconceiva- 
ble magnitude,  has  made  many  apostates.  Not  the  burst- 
ing of  our  bodily  doll-skin  in  death,  but  the  wide  disparity 
between  the  present  autumn  and  the  future  spring,  raises 
such  overwhelming  doubts  in  our  poor,  timid  breasts. 
This  is  shown  by  the  savages,  who  consider  the  future  life 
merely  as  the  second  volume,  the  new  testament  of  the 
first,  and  make  no  greater  distinction  between  the  first  and 
second  life  than  between  youth  and  age :  they  easily  be- 
lieve in  all  their  hopes  ;  your  first  difficulty,  the  bursting 
and  fading  of  the  bodily  polish,  does  not  deprive  the  sav- 
age of  the  hope  to  bud  anew  in  another  flower-vase.  But 
your  second  difficulty  daily  increases  itself,  and  its  advo- 
cates, for  by  the  increasing  proofs  and  apparatus  of  chem- 
istry and  physiology,  the  future  world  is  daily  more  ef- 
fectually annihilated  and  dispersed,  as  it  cannot  be  brought 

3  D 


50  CAMPANER    THAL. 

within  play  of  a  sun-microscope  or  of  a  chemical  furnace. 
In  fact,  not  only  the  reality,  but  also  the  theory  of  the 
body,  not  only  the  practised  measurement  of  its  longings, 
but  also  the  pure  moi*al  philosophy  of  its  spirit-world, 
must  darken  and  make  difficult  the  prospect  on  the  inner 
world  from  the  outer  one.  Only  the  moralist,  the  physi- 
ologist, the  poet,  and  the  artist  more  readily  comprehend 
our  inner  world ;  but  the  chemist,  the  physician,  and  the 
mathematician  want  both  seeing  and  hearing  faculties  for 
it,  and  in  time,  even  eyes  and  ears. 

"  On  the  whole,  I  find  fewer  men  than  one  would  imag- 
ine who  decidedly  believe  in,  or  deny,  the  existence  of  a 
future  world.  Few  dare  to  deny  it,  as  for  them  this  life 
would  then  lose  all  unity,  form,  peace,  and  hope  ;  —  few 
dare  to  believe  it,  for  they  are  startled  at  theii*  own  puri- 
fication and  at  the  destruction  of  the  lessened  earth.  The 
majority,  according  to  the  promptness  of  alternating  feel- 
ings, waver  poetically  between  both  beliefs. 

**As  we  paint  Devils  more  easily  than  Gods,  Furies 
than  Venus  Urania?  Hell  than  Heaven,  we  can  more  easily 
beheve  in  the  former  than  in  the  latter,  —  in  the  greatest 
misfortune  than  in  the  greatest  happiness.  Must  not  our 
spii'it,  used  to  misgivings  and  earth  chains,  be  startled  at 
a  Utopia  against  which  earth  will  be  shipwrecked,  that  the 
lilies  of  it,  like  the  Guernsey  lilies,*  may  find  the  shore 
to  bloom  on,  which  saves  and  satisfies,  elevates  and  makes 
blessed,  our  much  tormented  humanity. 

"  I  now  come  to  your  difficulty.  I  imagine,  if  even  we 
were  to  take  the  grave  to  be  merely  the  moat  of  commu- 
nication between  allied  globes,  our  ignorance  concerning 
the  second  world  should  not  terrify  us,  and  we  need  not 

*  The  Guernsey  lilv  from  Japan  has  its  name  from  the  Island  of 
Guernsey,  on  which  some  roots  of  it  were  cast  by  a  -vn-ecked  vessel. 


CAMPANER    THAL.  51 

take  for  granted  that  the  mountain  ridge  of  humanity  does 
not  continue  under  the  Dead  Sea,  merely  because  we  can- 
not see  through  its  waters,  for  do  not  all  mountain  ridges 
continue  on  the  bottom  of  the  ocean  ?  What !  man  will 
guess  at  worlds,  when  he  cannot  even  guess  world-quar- 
ters !  Would  the  Greenlander  paint  a  Negro,  a  Dane,  a 
Greek,  in  his  mind's  eye,  without  ever  having  seen  one  ? 
Can  the  political  genius  divine  the  inner  versifications  of 
the  poetic  one,  without  experience  ?  Can  the  Abderite 
imagine  the  architecture  of  the  sage  ?  Would  we  have 
guessed  the  existence  of  but  one  of  the  animal  creations 
of  Anthropomorphism  which  copy  the  human  figure  in  all 
animals,  and  yet  change  it  ?  Or  could  a  bodiless  self, 
placed  in  a  vacuum,  with  all  existing  logic  and  metaphys- 
ic,  ever  have  conceived  but  a  single  vein  of  its  present 
embodification  and  humanification  ?  " 

"  But  what  are  you  asserting  or  denying  ? "  asked 
Wilhelmi. 

"  I  only  assert  that  a  second  life  on  another  planet  can- 
not be  denied,  merely  because  we  are  unable  to  map  out 
the  planet,  and  portray  its  inhabitants.  But  we  need  no 
other  planet." 

The  Baron  said:  "0,1  have  often  dreamed  delicious 
dreams  of  this  '  grande  tour '  through  the  stars  !  It  seemed 
the  progression  of  a  student  from  one  class  to  another,  — 
the  classes  being  worlds." 

"  But,"  repHed  Karlson,  "  to  all  these  worlds,  as  upon 
our  own,  you  will  be  refused  admittance  if  you  arrive 
without  a  body.     By  what  miracle  will  you  obtain  one  ?  " 

"  By  a  repeated  one^''  I  answered.  "  For  by  a  miracle 
we  have  our  present  body.  But  we  can  say  in  favor  of 
this  planet  wandering,  that  our  eyes  too  widely  separate 
the  worlds  of  which  each  one  is  but  an  element  of  the 


52  CAMPANER    THAL. 

infinite  integral  whole.  The  different  worlds  and  their 
satellites  above  and  around  us,  are  only  far  removed 
world-quarters.  The  moon  is  but  a  smaller,  more  distant 
America,  and  space  is  the  ocean." 

Nadine  said :  "  One  day  I  so  pictured  the  inhabitants  of 
a  lemon-tree  to  myself.  The  worm  on  tlie  leaf  may  think 
it  is  on  the  green  earth,  the  second  worm  on  the  white  bud 
is  on  the  moon,  and  the  one  on  the  lemon  believes  itself  to 
be  upon  the  sun." 

"  And  yet  this,"  said  I,  "  is  but  a  tree  of  immeasura- 
ble life.  As  around  the  earth-kernel  cling  wider  and 
finer  covers,  —  the  earth,  the  seas,  the  air  and  space,  —  so 
the  giant  of  one  world  is  surrounded  by  increasingly  large 
ones,  with  ever  larger  arms.  The  longest  shell  is  the 
finest  one,  as  light  and  the  attractive  power.  The  beau- 
teous covering  elongates  and  rarefies  itself  from  iron  bands 
to  pearl  ties,  from  flower-chains  to  rainbows  and  milky- 
ways." 

"  Will  we  not  now  descend  from  the  milky-way,"  said 
Karlson,  "  for  we  cannot  ascend  it.  It  is  precisely  this 
uniformity  of  the  universe  which  forbids  the  rambling  of 
emigrants  from  the  earth.  Every  planet  already  has  its 
own  crew ;  more  dense  ones,  as  for  instance  Mercury, 
may  be  peopled  with  real  sailors." 

"  Precisely  as  Kant  supposes  ! "  said  Phylax. 

"  Finer,  less  solid  ones,  as  e.  g.  Uranus,  only  with  the 
most  tender  beings,  perhaps  only  with  women  and  nuns 
who  love  not  the  sun.  He  who  intends  to  rectify  the  so- 
called  soul  or  spirit  by  distilling  it  from  one  planet  to  the 
other,  may  with  as  much  justice  assert,  that  the  spirits  of 
the  slacked  Mercury  receive  their  dephlegmation  in  a  dis- 
tilling process  through  our  earth,  —  in  short,  that  the  earth 
is  the  second  world  for  Mercury  and  Venus.     The  dead 


CAMPANER    THAL.  53 

of  the  arctic  zones  could  even  pass  into  the  temperate 
ones  (it  would  be  distillatio  per  latus),  for  on  all  planets 
there  can  be  no  other  than  coarser  or  finer  human  beings  * 
like  ourselves." 

Karlson  waited  for  an  answer  and  a  contradiction,  but 
I  said  his  opinion  was  also  mine.  "  I  have  still  a  stronger 
reason,"  I  continued,  "  against  emigration  to,  and  voyage 
picturesque  through,  the  planets,  because  we  carry  and 
lock  up  a  heaven  of  starry  light  in  our  own  breasts,  for 
which  ho  dirty  earthball  is  clean  or  large  enough.  But 
on  this  subject  I  must  have  permission  to  speak  uninter- 
ruptedly, at  least  until  we  have  passed  all  these  corn- 
fields." 

Our  pleasure-trip  now  was  an  alley  of  magic  gardens, 
our  passage  through  a  golden  sea  of  corn-blades,  was 
accompanied  and  surrounded  on  all  sides  by  a  promised 
land,  in  which  solitary  houses  reposed  beneath  pictu- 
resquely grouped  leaf  groves,  as  in  Italy  sleepers  take 
their  siestas  on  shaded  meads.  I  was  permitted  to 
speak. 

"  There  is  an  inner,  heart-contained  spirit-world,  which 
breaks  through  the  dark  clouds  of  the  body-world  as  a 
warm  sun.  I  mean  the  inner  universe  of  virtue,  beaut?/, 
and  truth ;  three  soul-worlds  and  heavens,  which  are 
neither  parts,  nor  shoots,  nor  cuttings,  nor  copies  of  the 
outer  one.  We  are  less  astonished  at  the  inexplicable 
existence  of  these  three  transcendent  heavens,  because 
they  are  ever  floating  before  us,  and  because  we  foolishly 
imagine  we  create  them,  while  we  merely  recognize  them. 
After  which  copy,  with  what  plastic  material,  and  of  what, 

*  For  the  climatic  dissimilarity  of  the  planets  must  produce,  as  the 
climatic  difference  between  the  zones,  Negroes,  Greeks,  Indians,  etc., 
but  always  human  beings. 


54  CAMPANER    THAI. 

could  we  create  and  insert  in  ourselves  *  this  same  spirit- 
world  ?  Let  the  atheist  ask  himself  how  he  conceived  the 
giant  ideal  of  a  God,  which  he  either  denies  or  embodies  ? 
An  idea  which  has  not  been  built  upon  comparative 
greatness  and  degrees,  for  it  is  the  contrary  of  every 
measure  and  of  every  created  greatness.  In  short,  the 
atheist  denies  the  great  original  of  the  copy.^ 

"  As  there  are  idealists  of  the  outer  world  who  believe 
that  perception  makes  objects,  instead  of  that  objects  cause 
perception,  so  there  are  idealists  of  the  inner  world,  who 
deduct  the  being  from  the  seeming,  the  sound  from  the 
ecJio,  the  fact  from  its  appearance  ;  instead  of,  on  the 
contrary,  the  seeming  from  the  being,  our  consciousness 
from  the  objects  of  it.  We  mistake  our  power  of  ana- 
lyzing our  inner  world,  for  its  preformation,  i.  e.  the 
genealogist  thinks  himself  both   originator  and  founder. 

"  This  inner  universe,  which  is  still  more  glorious  and 
admirable  than  the  outer  one,  needs  another  heaven  than 
the  one  above  us,  and  a  higher  world  than  one  a  sun  now 
shines  upon.  Therefore  we  rightly  say,  not  a  second 
earth  or  globe,  but  a  second  world,  —  another  beyond  the 
universe." 

Gione  already  interrupted  me :  "  And  every  virtuous 
and  wise  being  is  in  himself  a  proof  of  immortality." 
"  And  every  one,"  added  Nadine,  quickly,  "  who  suffers 
innocently." 

"  Yes,  it  is  that,"  said  I,  with  emotion,  "  which  extends 
our  line  of  life  through  countless  ages.     The  chord  of 

*  One  ought,  therefore,  not  to  say  mundus  inieUigibiUs,  but  mundus 
intellectus. 

t  It  may  be  said,  that  in  this  manner  every  Utopia,  which  is  also  a 
copy,  must  be  realized,  for  the  original  of  all  dreams  and  Utopias 
does  indeed  exist,  —  though  partially  and  disconnectedly  ;  but  the 
Original  of  the  Eternal  cannot  exist  in  pieces  and  by  parcels. 


CAMPANEK    THAL.  55 

Virtue,  Truth,  and  Beauty,  taken  from  the  music  of  the 
spheres,  calls  us  from  this  dark  oppressive  earth,  and  an- 
nounces to  us  the  nearness  of  a  more  melodious  existence. 
Why,  and  from  whence  were  these  super-earthly  wants  and 
longings  created  in  us,  if  only,  like  swallowed  diamonds, 
slowly  to  cut  through  our  earthy  shell.  Why  was  a  being 
endowed  with  wings  of  light  chained  to  this  dirty  clump 
of  earth,  if  it  were  to  rot  in  its  birth-clod,  without  ever 
being  freed  from  it  by  means  of  its  ethereal  wings  ?  " 

Wilhelmi  said,  "  I  also  like  to  dream  the  dream  of  a 
second  life  in  the  sleep  of  this  first  one.  But  may  not 
our  beautiful  spiritual  powers  have  been  given  to  us  for 
the  enjoyment  and  preservation  of  the  present  life  ? " 

"  For  its  preservation  ?  "  I  said.  "  Then  an  angel  has 
been  locked  in  the  body  to  be  the  mute  sen^ant  and  fire- 
lighter, butler,  cook,  and  porter  of  the  stomach  ?  Would 
not  brutish  souls  have  sufficed  to  drive  man-bodies  to  the 
fruit-tree  and  the  spring  ?  Shall  the  pure  ethereal  flame 
only  dry  and  bake  the  bodily  patent  stove  with  life- 
warmth,  while  it  now  slakes  and  dissolves  it  ?  For  every 
tree  of  knowledge  is  the  poison-tree  of  the  body,  and 
every  mental  refinement  a  slow-poison  chalice.  But,  on 
the  contrary,  want  is  the  iron  key  of  freedom,  the  stom- 
ach is  the  manure-filled  hot-house  or  manufactory  of  hu- 
man blood,  and  the  various  animal  instincts  are  but  the 
earthy,  soiled  steps  to  the  Grecian  temple  of  our  spiritual 
elevation. 

"  For  enjoyment  you  said  also.  That  means,  we  received 
the  palate  and  appetite  of  a  god,  with  the  food  for  an  ani- 
mal. That  portion  of  us  which  is  of  earth,  and  creeps  on 
worm-folds,  may  and  can,  like  the  earthworm,  be  fed  and 
fattened  on  earth.  Exertion,  bodily  pain,  the  burning 
hunger  of  necessity,  and  the  tumult  of  our  senses  exclude 


56  CAMPANER    THAL. 

and  choke  the  spiritual  autumn  bloom  of  humanity  in  na- 
tions and  classes.  All  these  conditions  of  terrestrial  ex- 
istence must  be  fulfilled  ere  the  soul  may  claim  its  due. 
To  the  unhappy,  therefore,  who  must  be  the  business  men 
and  carriers  of  their  bodily  wants,  the  whole  inner  world 
seems  but  as  an  imaginary  gilt  cobweb,  like  the  man  who, 
breathing  only  the  electrical  atmosphere,  instead  of  feeling 
the  spark,  thinks  to  grasp  an  invisible  web.  But  when 
our  necessary  animal  servitude  is  over,  when  the  barking 
inner  dog-kennel  is  fed,  and  the  dog-fight  finished,  then 
the  inner  man  demands  his  nectar  and  ambrosia,  and  if 
he  is  turned  off  with  earth-food  only,  he  changes  to  an 
angel  of  Death,  and  a  Hellfiend,  driving  himself  to  sui- 
cide, or  makes  of  him  a  poison-mixer  who  destroys  all 
joy.*  The  eternal  hunger  in  man,  the  insatiability  of 
his  heart,  wants  not  a  richer,  but  a  different  food,  fruit, 
not  grass.  If  our  wants  referred  but  to  the  degree,  not 
to  the  quality,  then  the  imagination,  at  least,  might  paint 
a  degree  of  satiety.  But  imagination  cannot  make  us 
happy,  by  showing  us  innumerable  heaps  of  treasures,  if 
they  be  other  than  Virtue,  Truth,  and  Beauty'^ 

"  But  the  more  beautiful  soul  ?  "  asked  Nadine.  I  an- 
swered, '•  This  discrepancy  between  our  wishes  and  our 
circumstances,  the  heart  and  the  earth,  will  remain  an 
enigma,  if  we  are  immortal,  and  would  be  a  blasphemy  if 

*  This  applies  chiefly  to  the  higher  and  richer  orders,  with  whom 
the  satui-atiou  of  the  five  camel  stomachs,  the  senses,  and  the  starving 
of  Psyche  or  the  soul,  at  last  determines  into  a  horrible  horror  of  life, 
and  into  a  repulsive  mingling  of  liigh  aspirations  and  grovelling  desires. 
The  savage,  the  beggar,  and  the  provincialist  far  surpass  the  rich  and 
high  in  spiritual  enjoyment,  for  in  these,  as  in  the  houses  of  the  Jews, 
(in  memorj'  of  the  destruction  of  Jeinisalem)  there  must  always  be 
something  incomplete,  and  the  poor  have  too  many  of  their  earthly 
wants  assuaged  to  be  overwhelmed  and  pained  by  the  demands  of 
their  ethereal  nature. 


CAMPANER    THAL.  57 

we  decay.  Ah  !  how  could  the  beautiful  soul  be  happy  ? 
Strangers,  born  on  mountains  and  living  in  lowland  places, 
pine  in  an  incurable  homesickness.  We  belong  to  a 
higher  place,  and  therefore  an  eternal  longing  consumes 
us,  and  every  music  is  our  soul's  Swiss  ranz  des  vaches. 
In  the  morning  of  life,  the  joys  which  hearken  to  the  anx- 
ious wishes  of  our  hearts  are  seen  blooming  for  us  in  later 
years.  When  we  have  attained  these  years,  we  turn  on 
the  deceitful  spot,  and  see  behind  us,  pleasure  blooming 
in  the  strong  hopeful  youth,  and  we  enjoy  instead  of  our 
hopes,  the  recollections  of  our  hopes.  Joy  in  this  also  re- 
sembles the  rainbow,  which  in  the  morning  shines  over 
evening,  and  in  the  evening  arches  over  the  east.  The 
eye  may  reach  the  light,  but  the  arm  is  short,  and  holds 
but  the  fruit  of  the  soil." 

"  And  this  proves  ?  "  asked  the  Chaplain. 

"  Not  that  we  are  unhappy,  but  that  we  are  immortal, 
and  that  the  second  world  in  us  demands,  and  proves  a 
second  world  beyond  us.  O,  how  much  might  not  be 
said  of  this  second  life  whose  commencement  is  so  clearly 
shown  in  the  first  one,  and  which  so  strangely  doubles  us  t 
Why  is  Virtue  too  exalted  to  make  us,  and,  what  is  more, 
others  (sensually)  happy  ?  Why  does  the  incapability 
of  being  useful  on  earth  (as  the  expression  is)  increase 
with  a  certain  higher  purity  of  character,  as,  according  to 
Herschel,  there  are  suns  which  have  no  earth  ?  Why  is 
our  heart  tortured,  dried,  consumed,  and  at  last  broken  by 
a  slow  burning  fever  of  ceaseless  love  for  an  unattainable 
object,  only  alleviated  by  the  hope  that  this  consumption, 
like  a  physical  one,  must  one  day  be  sheltered  and  raised 
by  the  ice  cover  of  death  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Gione,  with  more  emotion  in  her  eye  than 
in  her  voice,  "  it  is  not  ice,  but  lightning.  When  our 
3* 


58  CAMPANER    THAL. 

heart  lies  a  sacrifice  on  the  altar,  fire  from  heaven  con- 
sumes it  as  a  proof  that  the  offering  is  accepted." 

I  know  not  why  her  calm  voice  so  painfully  disturbed 
my  whole  soul  (not  only  my  argument).  Even  Nadine's 
eyes,  which  triumphed  over  her  own  sorrows,  were  suf- 
fused with  tears  by  her  sister's,  and,  although  she  is  gen- 
erally more  timid  and  fastidious  than  Gione,  in  passing  a 
little  garden,  she  raised  from  a  projecting  hairy  potato- 
stalk,  a  large  moth,  and  showed  it  to  us  with  a  firm 
mouth,  which  should  have  been  softened  by  a  smile. 

It  was  the  so-called  Death's-head.  I  stroked  the  flat, 
drooping  wings,  and  said,  "  It  come  from  Egypt,  the 
laud  of  mummies  and  graves ;  it  bears  a  memento  mori 
on  its  back,  and  a  miserere  in  its  phiintive  voice."  "  In 
the  mean  time  it  is  a  butterfly,  and  visits  the  nectai'ies, 
which  we  day-birds  will  do  also,"  appropriately  observed 
TVilhelmi;  but  he  took  the  words  out  of  my  mouth. 

Gione's  countenance  again  expressed  thoughtful  calm- 
ness, and  to  me  she  became  immeasurably  beautiful  and 
grand  by  the  stillness  of  her  grief.  You  once  said  that 
the  female  soul,  though  it  be  pierced  with  burning  shafts, 
must  never  beat  its  wings  convulsively  together,  else,  like 
other  butterflies,  it  would  destroy  their  beauty.  How  true 
is  this ! 

Nadine's  eyes  seldom  shone  without  at  last  overflowing, 
and  every  sorrowful  emotion  remained  long  in  her  heart, 
because  she  tried  to  guard  against  it.  She  resembled 
those  springs  which  take  a  temperature  opposed  to  the 
time  of  day,  and  which  are  warmest  in  the  cool  evening. 
She  turned  to  me  and  said,  putting  her  hand  in  her  left 
pocket,  "  I  will  show  you  some  poetry  which  will  prove 
your  prose."  "While  she  was  seeking  it,  she  stood  still 
with  her  companion  Wilhelmi.     He  guessed  before  I  did, 


CAMPANER    THAL. 


59 


that  she  intended  to  give  me  something  from  the  Souvenir, 
and  when,  in  its  stead,  she  took  the  milliped's  prison  from 
her  pocket,  he  obligingly  said,  "  If  not  with  my  hands  yet 
with  my  eyes  I  assisted  at  the  theft,  and  as  accomplice  I 
beg  for  mercy."  The  serious  apology  for  this  foolishness 
scarcely  suited  our  earnest  tone  of  mind.  I  said,  "I 
wished  to  cause  a  more  useless  than  pardonable  joke,  but 
I  — "  She  did  not  allow  me  to  conclude,  but  mildly 
and  unchanged  (except  by  a  reproving  and  a  forgiving 
smile)  she  showed  me  in  the  aromatic  book  the  noble 
Karlson's  requiem  on  the  death  of  the  exalted  Gione.  I 
willingly  give  you  the  prosaic  echo  of  it,  from  my  prosaic 
memory. 

GRIEF  WITHOUT  HOPE. 

WHAT  cloud  is  that,  which  like  the  clouds  of  the 
tropics,  passes  from  morn  to  eve,  and  then  sets  ? 
It  is  humanity.  Is  that  the  magnet-mountain  covered 
with  the  nails  of  wrecked  ships?  No,  it  is  the  great 
Earth,  strewed  with  the  bones  of  fallen  men. 

Ah  !  why  did  I  love  ?     I  had  not  then  lost  so  much  ! 

Nadine,  give  me  thy  grief,  for  it  contains  hope.  Thou 
standest  by  thy  crushed  sister,  who  dissolves  even  beneath 
the  winding-sheet,  and  lookest  upwards  to  the  trembling 
stars,  and  thinkest :  Above,-  O  dearest  one,  thou  dost  re- 
side, and  on  the  suns  we  find  again  our  hearts,  and  the 
small  tears  of  life  will  be  over. 

But  mine  remain,  and  burn  in  the  dim  eye.  My  cy- 
press alley  is  not  open,  and  discloses  no  heaven.  Human 
blood  paints  the  fluid  figure  called  man  on  the  monument, 
as  oil  on  marble  forms  forests ;  Death  wipes  away  the 
man,  and  leaves   the  stone.     O   Cione  !   I  would  have 


6o  CAMPANER    THAL. 

some  consolation,  if  thou  wert  but  far  away  from  us  all, 
on  a  clouded  forest,  in  a  cave  of  tlie  Earth,  or  on  the 
most  distant  world  in  space.  But  thou  art  gone,  thy  soul 
is  dead,  not  only  thy  life  and  thy  body. 

See,  Nadine,  on  the  judgment-seat  of  Time  lies  the 
crushed  angel,  w4th  the  death  color  of  the  spirit-world. 
Gione  has  lost  all  her  virtues,  her  love,  her  patience,  her 
strength,  her  all-embracing  heart,  and  her  rich  mmd :  the 
thunderbolt  of  Death  has  destroyed  the  diamond,  and  now 
the  wax  statue  of  the  body  slowly  melts  beneath  the  soih 

Serpent  of  Eternity,  quickly  take  away  the  beautiful 
form,  as  the  larger  serpent  first  poisons  and  then  devours 
man.  But  I,  Gione,  stand  beside  your  ruins  with  unal- 
leviated  pain,  with  undestroyed  soul ;  and  grieving,  think 
of  you  until  I  also  dissolve.  And  my  grief  is  noble  and 
deep,  for  I  have  no  hope  !  May  thy  invisible  shadow- 
picture,  like  the  new  moon  with  the  sun,*  arise  to  heaven 
in  my  soul !  And  may  the  creative  w^heel  of  Time,  which 
raises  innumerable  hearts,  and  fills  them  with  blood,  only 
to  pour  them  again  into  the  grave,  and  let  them  die,  pour 
out  my  life  slowly,  for  long  time  would  I  mourn  for  thee, 
thou  lost  one ! 

I  cannot  tell  you,  dearest  Victor,  how  horrible  and  fear- 
ful the  eternal  snow  of  annihilating  death  seemed  to  me, 
placed  beside  the  noble  form  it  should  have  covered ;  how 
frightful  the  thought :  if  Karlson  is  right,  the  last  day  has 
torn  this  never  happy,  innocent  soul  from  the  prisons  upon 
the  earth  to  the  closer  ones  beneath  it :  man  too  often 
carries  his  errors  as  his  truths  only  as  word  arguments, 
not  as  feelings.     But  let  the  disbeliever  of  immortality 

*  The  new  moon  always  rises  with  the  sun,  although  dark  and 
invisible. 


CAMPANER    THAL.  6l 

imagine  a  life  of  sixty  minutes  instead  of  sixty  years,  and 
let  him  try  if  he  can  bear  to  see  loved,  noble,  or  wise  men 
only  aimless,  hour-long  air-phantoms,  hollow  thin  shadows 
which  fly  towards  the  hght  and  are  consumed  by  it,  and 
who,  without  path,  trace,  or  aim,  after  a  short  flight,  dis- 
solve into  their  former  night.  No  ;  even  over  him  steals 
a  supposition  of  immortality.  Else  a  black  cloud  would 
forever  hang  over  his  soul,  and  the  earth  would  quake 
beneath  him  when  he  trod  on  it,  as  if  he  were  a  Cain. 

I  continued,  but  all  arguments  were  poetized  into  feel- 
ings. "  Yes,  if  all  forests  of  this  eartlkwere  pleasure  grot- 
toes, all  valleys  Campan,  all  islands  holy,  all  fields  Elysian, 
and  all  eyes  sparkling,  yes,  then  —  no,  even  then  the  Eter- 
nal One  would  have  given  to  our  souls  the  promise  of  a 
future  life,  even  in  the  blessedness  of  the  present  one. 
But  now,  O  God !  when  so  many  houses  are  mourning 
ones,  so  many  fields  battle-fields,  so  many  cheeks  pale, 
and  when  we  pass  so  many  sunken,  red,  torn,  closed  eyes, 
—  O,  can  death  be  but  the  last  destroying  whirlwind  ? 
And  when  at  last,  after  thousand,  thousand  years,  our 
earth  is  dried  ilp  by  the  sun's  heat,  and  every  living  sound 
on  its  surface  silenced,  will  an  immortal  spirit  look  down 
on  the  silent  globe,  and,  gazing  on  the  empty  hearse  mov- 
ing slowly  on,  say  :  '  There  the  churchyard  of  humanity 
flies  into  the  crater  of  the  sun ;  on  that  burning  heap  many 
shadows,  and  dreamers,  and  wax-figures,  have  wept  and 
bled,  but  now  they  are  all  melted  and  consumed :  Fly 
into  the  sun,  which  will  also  dissolve  thee,  thou  silent 
desert  with  thy  swallowed  tears,  with  thy  dried-up 
blood ! '  No,  the  crushed  worm  dares  raise  himself  to 
his  Creator,  and  say:  *Thou  canst  not  have  made  me 
only  to  suffer.' " 

"  And  who  gives  the  worm  the  right  to  this  demand  ?  " 
asked  Karlson. 


62  CAMPANER    THAL. 

Gione  answered,  gently,  "The  Eternal  One  himself, 
wlio  gives  us  charity  and  who  speaks  in  all  our  souls  to 
calm  us,  and  who  alone  has  created  in  us  our  demands 
to  Him  and  our  hope  in  Him." 

This  good  sweet  word  could  still  not  calm  all  the  waves 
of  my  excited  soul.  From  a  distant  house,  turtle-doves 
sent  after  us  trembling,  soul-felt  plaints.  About  my  tear- 
filled  inward  eye  assembled  all  those  forms  whose  hearts 
were  without  guilt  and  without  joy,*  who  attained  no  single 
wish  here  below,  and  who,  sinking  under  the  frost  and 
snow-storm  of  fate,  only  longed,  like  persons  freezing  to 
death,  to  sleep  ;  and  all  those  forms  who  have  loved  too 
deeply,  and  lost  too  much,  and  whose  wounds  were  never 
cured  until  death  had  widened  them,  like  a  cracked  bell 
which  retains  its  hollow  sound  until  the  crevice  is  made 
larger,  and  the  beings  nearest  me,  and  many  other  female 
ones,  whose  exquisitely  tender  souls  fate  most  consecrates 
to  torture,  as  Narcissus  is  consecrated  to  the  God  of  Hell. 

*  There  are  three  kinds  of  men.  To  some,  a  heaven  is  granted  even 
on  this  earth;  to  others,  a  Umbus patrum  in  which  joy  and  sorrow  reign 
equally;  and,  lasth',  to  some  a  hell  in  which  grief  predominates.  Beings 
who  have  suffered  for  twenty  years  on  the  sick-bed  of  bodily  pain, 
which  is  not,  like  mental  sorrow,  worn  out  by  time,  have  certainly 
had  more  unhappiness  than  happiness,  and,  but  for  immortality,  would 
be  an  eternal  reproach  to  the  highest  moral  being.  And  if  there  exists 
no  such  unhappy  being,  it  is  yet  in  the  power  of  a  tyrant  to  make  one, 
on  a  chnical  torture-bed,  with  the  assistance  of  a  physician  and  a  phi- 
losopher. Such  a  one,  at  least,  has  a  right  to  demand  a  future  indem- 
nity for  his  sufferings,  because  the  Creator  cannot  have  formed  a  crea- 
ture to  mourn  more  than  it  can  rejoice. 

Besides,  though  the  object  of  our  grief  may  seem  but  a  deception  in 
the  eyes  of  the  Eternal  One,  our  grief  itself  cannot.  Human  suffering 
is  also  distinguished  from  brutish  pain,  because  the  animal  only  feels 
the  wound,  as  we  perhaps  do  in  sleep,  but  it  sees  it  not.  Its  pain  is 
not  ti'ebled  and  increased  by  anticipation,  recollection,  and  sensibility ;  it 
is  an  evanescent  sting,  and  nothing  more..  Therefore  tears  were  only 
given  to  human  eyes. 


CAMPANER    THAL.  63 

I  also  remembered  your  true  remark,  that  you  had  never 
pronounced  the  words  pain  and  the  past  before  a  woman, 
without  hearing  an  almost  inaudible  sigh  at  the  union  of 
the  two  words,  from  the  suffering  heart ;  for  woman  on 
the  narrower  stage  of  her  plans,  with  idealized  wishes  and 
desires  built  on  others'  worth,  rather  than  on  her  own, 
has  a  thousand  times  more  disappointments  to  suflfer  than 
we  men. 

The  sun  sank  deeper  behind  the  mountains,  and  giant 
shadows,  like  mighty  birds  of  prey,  came  coldly  down 
upon  us  from  the  eternal  snow.  I  took  Karlson's  hand 
in  mine,  and  looked  with  tearful  eyes  into  his  manly, 
beautiful  countenance,  and  said^  "  O  Karlson !  on  what 
a  blooming,  grand  w^orld  you  throw  an  immeasurable 
gravestone,  which  no  time  can  lift !  Are  two  difficul- 
ties,* based  too  on  the  necessary  ignorance  of  man,  suffi- 
cient to  overthrow  a  belief,  which  explains  thousand 
greater  difficulties,  without  which  our  existence  is  with- 
out aim,  our  suffi^rings  without  explanation,  and  the  holy 
Trinity  in  our  breast  three  furies,  and  three  terrible  con- 
tradictions ?  A  tending  God's  hand,  leading  and  feeding 
the  inner  man  (the  child  of  the  outer  one),  teaching  him 
to  go  and  to  speak,  educating,  refining  him,  is  shown  in 
all  things,  from  the  shapeless  earthworm  to  the  brilliant 
human  face,  from  the.  chaotic  nations  of  the  primitive 
ages  to  the  present  century,  from  the  first  faint  pulsation 
of  the  invisible  heart  to  its  full,  bold,  throbbing  pulse  in 
manhood,  —  and  why  ?  That  when  man  stands  upright 
and  exalted,  a  beautiful  demi-god,  even  amid  the  ruins 
of  his  old  body  temple,  the  club  of  Death  may  annihilate 
the  demi-god  forever  ?     And  on  the  eternal  sea,  on  which 

*  Ignorance  concerning  our  connection  with  the  body  and  our  con- 
nection with  the  second  world. 


64  CAMPANER    THAL. 

the  least  drop  throws  immeasurable  rings,  on  this  sea  a 
life-long  rising  and  a  life-long  falling  of  the  soul  should 
have  the  same  termination,  namely,  the  end  of  all  things, 
—  annihilation  ?  *  And  as,  from  the  same  cause,  the 
souls  of  all  other  worlds  must  fall  and  die  with  ours,  and 
of  this  shroud  and  crape-veiled  immeasurability  nothing 
remain  but  the  ever-sowing  and  never-reaping  solitary 
world-spirit,  who  sees  one  eternity  mourn  for  another, 
there  can  be  no  aim  and  no  object  in  the  whole  spiritual 
universum,  for  the  purpose  of  the  development  of  succeed- 
ing or  successive  ephemera  is  no  progress  for  the  vanished 
ephemera,  scarcely  even  for  the  last  one  which  can  never 
exist.t     And  you  take  for  granted  all  these  enigmas  and 

*  The  yearly  destruction  of  the  slowly  developed,  beautiful  flower- 
vrorld  does  not  argue  against  this;  for  to  the  tangible  world  each  con- 
dition of  its  parts  is  as  indifferent  and  perfect  as  the  other,  and  rose- 
ashes  are  as  good  as  rose-buds  (without,  of  course,  considering  the 
organic  soul).  Nothing  is  beautiful  but  our  appreciation  of  the  beau- 
tiful, not  the  object  itself.  If  it  should  be  said  that  nature  destroys 
so  many  developments,  for  whose  growth  she  had  alread}'  provided, 
that  she  breaks  many  thousand  eggs,  tears  so  many  buds,  crushes  men 
in  all  stages  of  life  with  her  blind  tread,  I  would  reply  that  the  inter- 
rupted development  is  yet  a  condition  of  the  perfected  one,  and  that 
every  position  of  its  parts  is  indifferent  to  material  objects,  and,  as 
coverings  of  the  spiritual  being,  they  still  testify  to  a  compensating 
immortality  of  the  latter. 

X  Methinks  the  folly  of  spiritual  mortality  has  not  been  suflBciently 
considered  from  this  point  of  view.  The  living  or  spiritual  whole  (for 
the  lifeless  one  has  no  other  object  than  to  be  a  means  for  the  living), 
as  such,  can  attain  no  object  which  each  portion  of  it  does  not  attain, 
for  each  one  is  one  whole,  and  every  other  whole  can  only  exist  as  a 
collective  idea,  and  not  as  a  reality.  To  consider  the  untenability  of  a 
progress  contained  in  a  course  of  vanishing  shadows  more  vividlj',  one 
might  shorten  the  life  of  a  soul  so  that  he,  e.  g.  could  only  read  one 
page  of  Kant's  Critic,  and  then  die.  For  the  second  page  another  soul 
must  be  created,  and  so  for  the  new  edition  884  souls.  The  mistake 
will  perhaps  become  perceptible  to  most  people  by  the  increasing 
moonlight  of  liberality  which  has  gradually  risen  over  the  past  cen- 
turies; but  the  necessity  for  compensation  demands  immortality. 


CAMPANER    THAL.  65 

contradictions  by  which  all  the  strings  of  creation,  not  only- 
its  harmony,  are  torn,  because  two  difficulties  present  them- 
selves to  you,  which  cannot  any  better  explain  mortality.  .  . 
Dearest  Karlson,  you  would  bring  your  eternally  jarring 
discord  into  this  harmony  of  the  spheres  !  See  how  calmly 
the  day  goes,  how  grandly  the  night  sets  in ;  did  you  not 
think  that  our  spirit  will  rise  one  day  from  its  grave  of 
ashes,  when  you  saw  the  mild  pale  moon  rise  grandly  from 
the  crater  of  Vesuvius  ? "  . .  .  The  sun  stood  on  the  moun- 
tains, about  to  plunge  into  the  sea  and  swim  to  the  new 
world.  Nadine  embraced  her  sister  with  emotion,  and 
said,  "  O,  we  love  each  other  forever  and  immortally, 
dearest  sister."  Karlson  accidentally  touched  the  chords  of 
the  lyre  which  he  carried :  Gione  took  it  from  him  with 
one  hand,  gave  him  the  other,  and  said,  "  You  are  the  only 
one  among  us  who  is  tormented  by  this  melancholy  be- 
lief,—  and  you  deserve  to  have  one  so  beautiful ! " 

This  word  of  concealed  love  overpowered  his  long-filled 
heart,  and  two  burning  drops  fell  from  the  blinded  eyes, 
and  the  sun  gilded  the  holy  tears,  and  he  said,  looking 
towards  the  mountains :  "  I  can  bear  no  annihilation  but 
my  own,  —  my  whole  heart  is  of  your  opinion,  and  my 
head  must  slowly  follow." 

I  will  not  again  mention  a  man  whom  I  have  blamed 
so  often. 

We  now  stood  before  a  mansion,  the  windows  of  which 
were  silvered,  and,  when  it  was  darker,  gilt  by  girandoles. 
Aloft  over  its  Italian  balcony  hung  two  balloons,  one  at  its 
eastern,  the  other  at  its  western  extremity.  Without  those 
beautiful  globes,  the  counterpart,  as  it  were,  of  the  two 
glorious  ones  in  heaven,  the  sun  and  the  moon,  I  should 
have  scarcely  paid  heed  to  the  scene  on  earth,  in  the 
splendor  of  the  one  on  high. 


66  CAMPANER    THAL. 

Dearest  friend,  how  beautiful  was-  the  place  and  the 
time.  Around  us,  in  their  majesty,  reposed  the  Pyrenees, 
half  robed  in  night  and  half  in  day,  not  stooping,  like  man, 
beneath  the  load  of  years,  but  erect  —  forever ;  and  I  felt 
■why  the  great  ancients  had  thought  the  mountains  were  a 
breed  of  giants.  On  the  mountain  heads  hung  wreaths 
of  roses  cloud-woven  ;  but  each  time  that  a  stai'  appeared 
upon  the  clear,  deep  sea  of  ether  and  sparkled  on  its  azure 
waves,  a  rose  from  the  mountain's  chaplet  faded  and 
dropped  away.  The  Mittaghorn,  alone,  like  a  higher 
spirit,  gazed  long  after  the  sinking  lonely  sun,  and  glowed 
with  ecstasy.  Down  beneath  us  an  amphitheatre  of  lem- 
on-trees, by  its  perfumes,  brought  us  back  to  the  veiled 
earth,  and  made  a  dusky  paradise  of  it.  And  Gione, 
in  calm  rapture,  struck  the  chords  of  her  guitar,  and 
softly  did  Nadine's  voice  accompany  the  ghding  tones. 
The  nightingale  in  the  rose-hedges  by  the  lake  awoke, 
and  the  plaintive  tones  from  its  tiny  heart  pierced  deep 
into  the  great  heart  of  man ;  and  shining  glowworms  flew 
from  rose-bush  to  rose-bush,  but  in  the  mirror  of  the  lake 
they  were  but  as  golden  sparks,  floating  over  pale  yellow 
flowers.  But  when  we  looked  again  towards  the  heavens, 
lo  !  all  its  stars  were  gleaming,  and  in  place  of  rose-woven 
wreaths,  the  mountains  were  clad  in  extinguished  rain- 
bows, and  the  giant  of  the  Pyrenees  was  crowned  with 
stars  instead  of  roses.  O  my  beloved  Victor !  in  this 
moment  it  was  with  each  of  our  enraptured  souls  as  if 
from  its  oppressed  heart  earth's  load  had  dropped  away ; 
as  if  from  her  mother's  arms,  the  earth  were  giving  us, 
matured  in  the  Father  arms  of  the  infinite  Creator ;  as  if 
our  little  life  were  over !  To  ourselves,  we  seemed  the 
immortal,  the  exalted.  'We  fancied  that  our  speech  of 
man's  immortality  had  been  the  prophecy  of  our  own,  as 


CAMPANER    THAL.  6"] 

with  two  great  and  noble  men.*  But  though  we  entered 
the  brilHant  rooms,  the  storm  of  new  joys  could  not  destroy 
the  old  ones.  We  were  not  yet  able  to  be  without  the 
great  night  around  us,  and  we  ascended  the  platform, 
that  from  this  little  throne  we  might  better  contemplate 
the  higher  throne  of  creation  beneath  the  eternal  canopy ; 
although  kneeling  would  have  been  e  higher  ascension 
for  the  moved  soul. 

There  were  night-violets  in  a  glass  box,  which  traced 
Clone's  name  in  blooming  colors.  I  remembered  the  glow- 
worms and  millipeds.  I  let  the  former  fly  down  upon  the 
rose-bushes  in  confused  star-pictures ;  with  the  latter  I 
fired  Gione's  beautiful  flower  namesake. 

Gione  looked  longingly  towards  the  eastern  Mongol- 
fiere.  Wilhelmi  understood  her.  Her  soul  was  as  bold 
as  it  was  calm,  she  had  already  visited  many  of  the  magic 
caves  of  earth,  and  had  ascended  to  the  summits  of  the 
highest  Alps ;  she  wished  now  to  rise  in  the  air,  and  to 
float  in  the  heavens  above  this  beautiful  country,  and  on 
this  beauteous  night ;  but  the  enjoyment  of  the  prospect 
was  not  her  only  motive.  Wilhelmi  asked  who  should 
be  her  companion.  Solitude  was  her  chief  desire.  The 
breadth  and  depth  of  the  boat  under  the  globe,  a  chair 
in  it,  and  the  cords  by  which  she  would  be  raised  and 
lowered,  secured  the  trip  from  all  danger. 

Like  a  celestial  being  she  rose  beneath  the  stars,  —  the 
night  and  the  height  threw  a  mist  over  her  rising  form. 
A  slight  zephyr  rocked  the  blooming  Aurora,  and  crowned 
the  moving  goddess  with  alternate  constellations.  Now 
her  countenance  appeared  surrounded  by  pale  supernat- 

*  Raphael  died  when  he  had  finished  the  painting  of  the  resurrec- 
tion, and  Haman  died  while  his  essay  on  resurrection  and  disembodi- 
ment was  being  printed. 


68  CAMPANER    THAL. 

iiral  ray?.  It  seemed  bright  as  an  angel  rising  towards 
its  kindred  stars  through  the  rich  dark  blue  space.  An 
unusual  tremor  seized  on  Wilhelmi  and  Karlson  ;  it  was 
as  if  they  saw  their  beloved  one  again  carried  from  them 
on  the  wings  of  the  angel  of  Death. 

When  she  returned  to  us  her  eyes  were  red  with  weep- 
ing ;  she  had  ascended,  that  she  might  in  an  unseen  mo- 
ment, shed  her  old  heavy  tears  near  the  stars.  O  the 
Celestial  one  !  She  smiled  strangely  in  the  slumber  of 
this  life  at  higher  joys  than  earthly  ones,  as  sleeping  chil- 
dren smile  when  they  see  Angels. 

It  was  now  impossible  to  repress  my  longing  for  the 
stars,  and  my  petition  to  be  allowed  to  ascend.  Permis- 
sion to  use  the  western  Mongolfiere  was  willingly  be- 
stowed. Nadine,  emboldened  by  the  safe  return  of  her 
sister,  and  by  the  companion  in  the  danger,  skipped  into 
the  boat,  with  her  usual  impulsive  warmth,  to  refresh  her 
thii-sting  soul  with  the  majestic  immeasurability  of  night. 

And  now  the  suns  raised  us.  The  heavy  earth  sank 
down  as  the  past ;  wings  such  as  man  has  in  happy 
dreams  bore  us  upwards. 

The  mighty  vacancy  and  silence  of  space  lay  stretched 
before  us  even  up  into  the  stars ;  —  as  we  rose  higher,  the 
dark  forests  seemed  but  clouds,  and  snow-girt  mountain- 
tops  like  snow-flakes.  The  ascending  globe  bore  us  near- 
er to  the  harmless,  silent  lightning  of  the  moon,  in  whose 
bright  satellite  we  seemed  cradled,  and  which  stood  as  a 
calm  Elysium  beneath  the  heavens,  and  high  above  the 
thick  fog  air,  the  light  heart  beating  more  quickly,  seemed 
to  pant  with  ethereal  gladness  to  have  left  the  earth  with 
out  discarding  its  shell  covering.  Our  ascent  was  sud- 
denly arrested  —  we  looked  down  into  the  valley,  half 
concealed  by  distance   and   the   darkness  of  the   night. 


CAMPANER    THAL.  69 

Only  the  lights  from  the  mansion  were  visible  'o  us,  —  a 
western  cloud  hung  like  a  white  fog  before  us,  and  a 
black  eagle  flew  like  an  angel  of  death  from  the  east 
through  the  cloud  pillar,  seeking  its*  summit,  and  a  cool 
breeze  playfully  drew  us  towards  the  mist-island.  The 
evening  red  had  already  passed  the  earth  at  midnight,  and 
wandered  over  charming  France  as  its  future  Aurora. 
O,  how  the  soul  was  raised  towards  the  stars,  and  how 
lightly  did  our  hearts  beat  above  the  earth  ! 

But  now  from  the  bright  mansion  arose  sweet  harmony, 
and  the  subdued  echo  of  the  voices  of  our  beloved  ones 
calHng  upon  us.  And  when  Nadine  looked  down,  her 
lonely  heart  broke  with  longing  after  those  dear  ones ; 
and  when  she  glanced  into  the  silvered  valley,  over  which 
the  moon  had  risen,  and  where  the  trembling  waterfalls 
danced  beside  the  flowing  archings  of  the  stream  and  the 
green  marble  caves,  and  the  white  paths  between  poplars 
and  wheat-ears,  and  the  whole  enchanting  path  of  our 
day's  journey  lay  silvered  beneath  her  inconstant  rays,  — 
bright,  shining  tears  flowed  unrestrained  from  her  mild 
eyes,  and  she  looked  imploringly  to  me,  as  if  begging  for 
consideration  and  secrecy,  and  said  expressively,  "  We 
are  yet  so  far  from  the  cruel  earth." 

When  our  little  globe  was  drawn  back  to  the  shining 
meadows  and  the  merry  music,  she  looked  inquiringly  at 
me,  to  ask  if  the  traces  of  tears  yet  remained  in  her  eyes. 
She  dried  them  more  quickly,  but  in  vain.  Silently  we 
descended  ;  I  took  her  burning  hand  in  mine,  and  looked 
into  her  weeping  eyes,  but  could  not  speak. 
—  And  how  could  I  speak  better  now,  dearest  friend  I 


LIFE 


QuiNTUS     FiXLEIN 


EXTRACTED   FROM 


FIFTEEN    LETTER-BOXES. 


TRANSLATED    BY   THOMAS    CARLYLE. 


-<§)0(2> 


LETTER   TO   MY   FRIENDS, 

INSTEAD    OF   PREFACE. 

ER CHANTS,  Authors,  young  Ladies,  and 
Quakers,  call  all  persons,  with  whom  they 
have  any  business,  Friends  ;  and  my  readers 
accordingly  are  my  table  and  college  Friends. 
Now,  at  this  time,  I  am  about  presenting  so  many  hundred 
Friends  with  just  as  many  hundred  gratis  copies  ;  and  my 
Bookseller  has  orders  to  supply  each  on  request,  after  the 
Fair,  with  his  copy  —  in  return  for  a  trifling  consideration 
and  don  gratuit  to  printers,  pressmen,  and  other  such  per- 
sons. But  as  I  could  not,  like  the  French  authors,  send 
the  whole  Edition  to  the  binder,  the  blank  leaf  in  front 
was  necessarily  wanting  ;  and  thus  to  write  a  complimen- 
tary word  or  two  upon  it  was  out  of  my  power.  I  have 
therefore  caused  a  few  white  leaves  to  be  inserted  directly 
after  the  title-page;  on  these  we  are  now  printing. 

My  Book  contains  the  Life  of  a  Schoolmaster,  extract- 
ed and  compiled  from  various  public  and  private  docu- 
ments. With  this  Biography,  dear  Friends,  it  is  the  pur- 
pose of  the  Author  not  so  much  to  procure  you  a  pleasure 
as  to  teach  you  how  to  enjoy  one.  In  truth,  King  Xerxes 
should  have  offered  his  prize-medals,  not  for  the  invention 

4 


74  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

of  new  pleasures,  but  for  a  good  methodology  and  direc- 
tory to  use  the  old  ones. 

Of  ways  for  becoming  happier  (not  happy)  I  could 
never  inquire  out  more  than  three.  The  first,  rather  an 
elevated  road,  is  this :  to  soar  away  so  far  above  the 
clouds  of  life,  that  you  see  the  whole  external  world,  with 
its  wolf-dens,  charnel-houses,  and  thunder-rods,  lying  far 
down  beneath  you,  shrunk  into  a  little  child's  garden. 
The  second  is :  simply  to  sink  down  into  this  little  gar- 
den ;  and  there  to  nestle  yourself  so  snugly,  so  homewise, 
in  some  furrow,  that,  in  looking  out  from  your  warm 
lark-nest,  you  likewise  can  discern  no  wolf-dens,  charnel- 
houses,  or  thunder-rods,  but  only  blades  and  ears,  every 
one  of  which,  for  the  nest-bird,  is  a  tree,  and  a  sun-screen, 
and  a  rain-screen.  The  third,  finally,  which  I  look  upon 
as  the  hardest  and  cunningest,  is  that  of  alternating  be- 
tween the  other  two. 

This  I  shall  now  satisfactorily  expound  to  men  at 
large. 

The  Hero,  the  Reformer,  your  Brutus,  your  Howard, 
your  Republican,  he  whom  civic  storm,  or  genius  poetic 
storm,  impels ;  in  short,  every  mortal  with  a  great  Pur- 
pose, or  even  a  perennial  Passion  (were  it  but  that  of  writ- 
ing the  largest  folios)  ;  all  these  men  fence  themselves  in 
by  their  internal  world  against  the  frosts  and  heats  of  the 
external,  as  the  madman  in  a  worse  sense  does ;  every 
Jixed  idea,  such  as  rules  every  genius,  every  enthusiast, 
at  least  periodically,  separates  and  elevates  a  man  above 
the  bed  and  board  of  this  Earth,  above  its  Dog's-grottoes, 
buckthorns,  and  Devil's-walls ;  like  the  Bird  of  Paradise, 
he  slumbers  flying ;  and,  on  his  outspread  pinions,  over- 
sleeps unconsciously  the  eartliquakes  and  conflagrations 
of  Life,  in  his  long,  fair  dream  of  his  ideal  Mother-land. 


LETTER    TO    MY    FRIENDS.  75 

—  Alas !  To  few  is  this  dream  granted ;  and  these  few 
are  so  often  awakened  by  Flying  Dogs !  * 

This  skyward  track,  however,  is  fit  only  for  the  winged 
portion  of  the  human  species,  for  the  smallest.  What  can 
it  profit  poor  quill-driving  brethren,  whose  souls  have  not 
even  wing-shells,  to  say  nothing  of  wings  ?  Or  these  teth- 
ered persons  with  the  best  back,  breast,  and  neck-fins,  who 
float  motionless  in  the  wicker  Fish-box  of  the  State,  and 
are  not  allowed  to  swim,  because  the  Box  or  State,  long 
ago  tied  to  the  shore,  itself  swims  in  the  name  of  the 
Fishes?  To  the  whole  standing  and  writing  host  of 
heavy-laden  State-domestics,  Purveyors,  Clerks  of  all  de- 
partments, and  all  the  lobsters  packed  together  heels  over 
head  into  the  Lobster-basket  of  the  Government  office- 
rooms,  and  for  refreshments,  sprinkled  over  with  a  few 
nettles ;  to  these  persons,  what  way  of  becoming  happy 
here  can  I  possibly  point  out  ? 

My  second  merely ;  and  that  is  as  follows :  to  take  a 
compound  microscope,  and  with  it  to  discover,  and  con- 
vince themselves,  that  their  drop  of  Burgundy  is  properly 
a  Red  Sea,  that  butterfly-dust  is  peacock-feathers,  mouldi- 
ness  a  flowery-field,  and  sand  a  heap  of  jewels.  These 
microscopic  recreations  are  more  lasting  than  all  costly 
watering-place  recreations.  —  But  I  must  explain  these 
metaphors  by  new  ones.  The  purpose  for  which  I  have 
sent  FixleirCs  ^^f^  iiito  the  Messrs.  Liibeks'  Warehouse, 
is  simply  that  in  this  same  Life  —  therefore  in  this  Pref- 
ace it  is  less  needful  —  I  'may  show  to  the  whole  Earth 
that  we  ought  to  value  little  joys  more  than  great  ones, 
the  night-gown  more  than  the  dress-coat ;  that  Plutus's 
heaps  are  worth  less  than  his  handfuls,  the  plum  than  the 
penny  for  a  rainy  day  ;  and  that  not  great,  but  little  good- 

*  So  are  the  Vampires  called. 


76  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

haps  caa  make  us  happy.  —  Can  I  accomplish  this,  I 
shall,  through  means  of  my  Book,  bring  up  for  Posterity 
a  race  of  men  finding  refreshment  in  all  things  ;  in  the 
warmth  of  their  rooms  and  of  their  night-caps ;  in  their 
pillows ;  in  the  three  High  Festivals ;  in  mere  Apostles' 
days ;  in  the  Evening  Moral  Tales  of  their  wives,  when 
these  gentle  persons  have  been  forth  as  ambassadresses 
visiting  some  Dowager  Residence,  whither  the  husband 
could  not  be  persuaded ;  in  the  bloodletting-day  of  these 
their  newsbringers ;  in  the  day  of  slaughtering,  salting, 
potting  against  the  rigor  of  grim  winter ;  and  in  all  such 
days.  You  perceive,  my  drift  is,  that  man  must  become  a 
little  Tailor-bird,  which,  not  amid  the  crashing  boughs  of 
the  storm-tost,  roaring,  immeasurable  tree  of  Life,  but  on 
one  of  its  leaves,  sews  itself  a  nest  together,  and  there 
lies  snug.  The  most  essential  sermon  one  could  preach 
to  our  century  were  a  sermon  on  the  duty  of  staying  at 
home. 

The  third  skyward  road  is  the  alternation  between  the 
other  two.  The  foregoing  second  way  is  not  good  enough 
for  man,  who  here  on  Earth  should  take  into  his  hand  not 
the  Sickle  only,  but  also  the  Plough.  The  Jlrst  is  too 
good  for  him.  He  has  not  always  the  force,  like  Pugen- 
das,  in  the  midst  of  the  Battle  to  compose  Battle-pieces ; 
and,  like  Backhuisen  in  the  Shipwreck,  to  clutch  at  no 
board  but  the  drawing-board  to  paint  it  on.  And  then  his 
pains  are  not  less  lasting  than  his  fatigues.  Still  oftener 
is  Strength  denied  its  Arena;  it  is  but  the  smallest  por- 
tion of  life  that,  to  a  working  soul,  offers  Alps,  Revolu- 
tions, Rhine-falls,  Worms  Diets,  and  Wars  with  Xerxes  ; 
and  for  the  whole  it  is  better  so ;  the  longer  portion  of  life 
is  a  field  beaten  flat  as  a  threshing-floor,  without  lofty 
Gothard  Mountains ;  often  it  is  a  tedious  ice-field,  without 
a  single  glacier  tinged  with  dawn. 


LETTER    TO    MY    FRIENDS.  77 

But  even  by  walking,  a  man  rests  and  recovers  himself 
for  climbing;  by  little  joys  and  duties,  for  great.  The 
victorious  Dictator  must  contrive  to  plough  down  his  bat- 
tle Mars-field  into  a  flax  and  carrot  field ;  to  transform  his 
theatre  of  war  into  a  parlor  theatre,  on  which  his  children 
may  enact  some  good  pieces  from  the  Children's  Friend. 
Can  he  accomplish  this,  can  he  turn  so  softly  from  the 
path  of  poetical  happiness  into  that  of  household  happi- 
ness, —  then  is  he  little  different  from  myself,  who  even 
now,  though  modesty  might  forbid  me  to  disclose  it  —  who 
even  now,  I  say,  amid  the  creation  of  this  Letter,  have 
been  enabled  to  reflect,  that,  when  it  is  done,  so  also  will 
the  Roses  and  Elder-berries  of  pastry  be  done,  which  a 
sure  hand  is  seething  in  butter  for  the  Author  of  this 
Work. 

As  I  purpose  appending  to  this  Letter  a  Postscript  (at 
the  end  of  the  Book),  I  reserve  somewhat  which  I  had  to 
say  about  the  Third  *  half-satirical,  half-philosophical  part 
of  the  Work  till  that  opportunity. 

Here,  out  of  respect  for  the  rights  of  a  Letter,  the 
Author  drops  his  half  anonymity,t  and  for  the  first  time 
subscribes  himself  with  his  whole  true  name, 

Jean  Paul  Friedeich  Richter. 

Hof  in  Voigtlandy  29th  June,  1795. 

*  Fixlein  stands  in  the  middle  of  the  volume;  preceded  by  Finer 
Mustheil  fiir  Mddchen  (A  Jelly-course  for  young  Ladies);  and  fol- 
lowed by  Some  Jus  de  Tablette  for  Men.  A  small  portion  of  the 
Preface  relating  to  the  first  I  have  already  omitted.  Neither  of  the 
two  have  the  smallest  relation  to  Fixlein. —  Ed. 

t  J.  P.  H.,  Jean  Paul  Hasus,  Jean  Paul.  &c.,  have  in  succession 
been  Richter's  signatures.  At  present  even,  his  German  designation, 
either  in  writing  or  speech,  is  never  Eichier,  but  Jean  Paul.  —  Ed. 


LIFE  OF  QUINTUS  FIXLEIN, 

DOWN    TO    OUR    OWN    TIMES. 

IN    FIFTEEN    LETTER-BOXES. 


FIRST    LETTER-BOX. 

Dog-Days'  Vacation.  —  Visits.  —  An  Indigent  of  Quality. 


GIDIUS  ZEBEDAUS  FIXLEIN  had  just 
for  eight  days  been  Quintus,*  and  fairly  com- 
menced teaching  duties,  when  Fortune  tabled 
out  for  him  four  refreshing  courses  and  colla- 
tions, besprinkled  with  flowers  and  sugar.  These  ^were 
the  four  canicular  weeks.  I  could  find  in  my  heart,  at 
this  hour,  to  pat  the  cranium  of  that  good  man  who  in- 
vented the  Dog-days'  Vacation.     I  never  go  to  walk  in 

*  For  understanding  many  little  hints  which  occur  in  this  Life  of 
Fixlein,  it  will  be  necessary  to  bear  in  mind  the  following  particulars: 
A  German  Gymnasium,  in  its  complete  state,  appears  to  include  eight 
Masters  ;  Rector,  Conrector,  Sub  rector,  Quintus,  Quartus,  Tertius,  &c., 
to  the  frst  or  lowest.  The  forms,  or  classes,  again,  are  arranged  in  an 
inverse  order;  the  Primaner  (boys  of  the  Prima,  or  first  form)  being 
the  most  advanced,  and  taught  by  the  Rector ;  the  Secundaner,  by  the 
Conrector,  &c.;  and  therefore  the  Quartaner  by  the  Quintus.  In 
many  cases,  it  would  seem,  the  number  of  Teachers  is  only  six  j  but 
in  this  Flachsenfingen  Gymnasium  we  have  express  evidence  that 
there  was  no  curtailment.  —  Ed. 


8o  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

that  season,  without  thinking  how  a  thousand  down-pressed 
pedagogic  persons  are  now  erecting  themselves  in  the 
open  air;  and  the  stiff  knapsack  is  lying  unbuckled  at 
their  feet,  and  they  can  seek  whatsoever  their  soul  desires  ; 
butterflies,  —  or  roots  of  numbers,  —  or  roots  of  words,  — 
or  herbs,  —  or  their  native  villages. 

The  last  did  our  Fixlein.  He  moved  not,  however,  till 
Sunday,  —  for  you  like  to  know  how  holidays  taste  in  the 
city  ;  and  then,  in  company  with  his  Shock  and  a  Quin- 
taner,  or  Fifth-Form  boy,  who  carried  his  Green  night- 
gown, he  issued  through  the  gate  in  the  morning.  The 
dew  was  still  lying ;  and  as  he  reached  the  back  of  the 
gardens,  the  childi-en  of  the  Orphan  Hospital  were  uplift- 
ing with  clear  voices  their  morning  hymn.  The  city  was 
Flachsenfingen,  the  village  Hukelum,  the  dog  Schil,  and 
the  year  of  Grace  1791. 

"  Manikin,"  said  he,  to  the  Quintaner,  for  he  liked  to 
speak,  as  Love,  children,  and  the  people  of  Vienna  do,  in 
diminutives,  "  Manikin,  give  me  the  bundle  to  the  village  ; 
run  about,  and  seek  thee  a  little  bird,  as  thou  art  thyself, 
and  so  have  something  to  pet  too  in  vacation-time."  For 
the  manikin  was  at  once  his  page,  lackey,  room-comrade, 
train-bearer,  and  gentleman  in  waiting ;  and  the  Shock 
also  was  his  manikin. 

He  stept  slowly  along,  through  the  crisped  cole-beds, 
overlaid  with  colored  beads  of  dew  ;  and  looked  at  the 
bushes,  out  of  which,  when  the  morning  wind  bent  them 
asunder,  there  seemed  to  start  a  flight  of  jewel-colibri,  so 
brightly  did  they  glitter.  From  time  to  time  he  drew  the 
bell-rope  of  his  —  whistle,  that  the  manikin  might  not 
skip  away  too  far ;  and  he  shortened  his  league  and  half 
of  road,  by  measuring  it  not  in  leagues,  but  in  villages. 
It  is  more  pleasant  for  pedestrians  —  for  geographers  it  is 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  8l 

not  —  to  count  by  wersts  than  by  miles.  In  walking,  our 
Quintus  furthermore  got  by  heart  the  few  fields  on  which 
the  grain  was  already  reaped. 

But  now  roam  slower,  Fixlein,  through  His  Lordship's 
garden  of  Hukelum ;  not,  indeed,  lest  thy  coat  sweep  away 
any  tulip-stamina,  but  that  thy  good  mother  may  have  time 
to  lay  her  Cupid's-band  of  black  taffeta  about  her  smooth 
brow.  I  am  grieved  to  think  my  fair  readers  take  it  ill  of 
her,  that  she  means  first  to  iron  this  same  band ;  they  can- 
not know  that  she  has  no  maid  ;  and  that  to-day  the  whole 
Preceptorial  dinner  —  the  money  purveyances  the  guest 
has  made  over  to  her  three  days  before  —  is  to  be  arranged 
and  prepared  by  herself,  without  the  aid  of  any  Mistress 
of  the  Household  whatever  ;  for  indeed  she  belongs  to  the 
Tiers  Etat,  being  neither  more  nor  less  than  a  gardener's 
widow. 

You  can  figure  how  this  true,  warm-hearted  mother  may 
have  lain  in  wait  all  morning  for  her  Schoolman,  whom 
she  loved  as  the  apple  of  her  eye  ;  since,  on  the  whole 
populous  Earth,  she  had  not  (her  first  son,  as  well  as  her 
husband,  was  dead)  any  other  for  her  soul,  which  indeed 
overflowed  with  love ;  not  any  other  but  her  Zebedaus. 
Could  she  ever  tell  you  aught  about  him,  I  mean  aught 
joyful,  without  ten  times  wiping  her  eyes  ?  Nay,  did  she 
not  once  divide  her  solitary  Kirmes  (or  Churchale)  cake 
between  two  mendicant  students,  because  she  thought 
Heaven  would  punish  her  for  so  feasting,  while  her  boy 
in  Leipzig  had  nothing  to  feast  on,  and  must  pass  the 
cake-garden  like  other  gardens,  merely  smelling  at  it  ? 

"  Dickens  !  Tliou  already,  Zebedaus  !  "  said  the  mother, 
giving  an  embarrassed  smile,  to  keep  from  weeping,  as  the 
son,  who  had  ducked  past  the  window,  and  crossed  the 
grassy  threshold  without  knocking,  suddenly  entered.    For 

4*  F 


82  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

joy  she  forgot  to  put  the  heater  into  the  smoothing-iron,  as 
her  illustrious  scholar,  amid  the  loud  boiling  of  the  soup, 
tenderly  kissed  her  brow,  and  even  said  Mamma ;  a  name 
which  lighted  on  her  breast  hke  downy  silk.  All  the 
windows  were  open  ;  and  the  garden,  with  its  flower- 
essences,  and  bird-music,  and  butterfly-collections,  was  al- 
most half  within  the  room.  But  I  suppose  I  have  not  yet 
mentioned  that  the  little  garden-house,  rather  a  chamber 
than  a  house,  was  situated  on  the  western  cape  of  the 
Castle  garden.  The  owner  had  graciously  allowed  the 
widow  to  retain  this  dowager-mansion;  as  indeed  the 
mansion  would  otherwise  have  stood  empty,  for  he  now 
kept  no  gardener. 

But  Fixlein,  in  spite  of  his  joy,  could  not  stay  long  with 
her ;  being  bound  for  the  Church,  which,  to  his  spiritual 
appetite,  was  at  all  times  a  king's  kitchen  ;  a  mother's.  A 
sermon  pleased  him  simply  because  it  was  a  sermon,  and 
because  he  himself  had  once  preached  one.  The  mother 
was  contented  he  should  go  ;  these  good  women  think 
they  enjoy  their  guests,  if  they  can  only  give  them  aught 
to  enjoy. 

In  the  choir,  this  Free-haven  and  Ethnic  Forecourt  of 
stranger  church-goers,  he  smiled  on  all  parishioners ;  and, 
as  in  his  childhood,  standing  under  the  wooden  wing  of  an 
archangel,  he  looked  down  on  the  coifed  parterre.  His 
young  years  now  enclosed  him  like  children  in  their  smil- 
ing circle  ;  and  a  long  garland  wound  itself  in  rings  among 
them,  and  by  fits  they  plucked  flowers  from  it,  and  threw 
them  in  his  fiice.  Was  it  not  old  Senior  Astman  that  stood 
there  on  the  pulpit  Parnassus,  the  man  by  whom  he  had 
been  so  often  flogged,  while  acquiring  Greek  with  him  from 
a  grammar  written  in  Latin,  which  he  could  not  explain, 
yet  was  forced  to  walk  by  the  light  of?    Stood  there  not 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  83 

behind  the  pulpit-stairs  the  sacristy-cabin,  and  in  this  was 
there  not  a  church-library  of  consequence  —  no  school-boy 
could  have  buckled  it  wholly  in  his  book-strap  —  lying 
under  the  minever  cover  of  pastil  dust  ?  And  did  it  not 
consist  of  the  Polyglot  in  folio,  which  he,  spurred  on  by 
Pfeiffer's  Critica  Sacra,  had  turned  up  leaf  by  leaf,  in  his 
early  years,  excerpting  therefrom  the  litercB  inversce  majus- 
culce  minusculce,  and  so  forth,  with  an  immensity  of  toil? 
And  could  he  not  at  present,  the  sooner  the  more  readily, 
have  wished  to  cast  this  alphabetic  soft-fodder  into  'the 
Hebrew  letter-trough,  whereto  your  Oriental  Rhizophagi 
(Rooteaters)  are  tied,  especially  as  here  they  get  so  little 
vowel  hard-fodder  to  keep  them  in  heart  ?  —  Stood  there 
not  close  by  him  the  organ-stool,  the  throne  to  which, 
every  Apostle-day,  the  Schoolmaster  had  by  three  nods 
elevated  him,  thence  to  fetch  down  the  sacred  hyssop,  the 
sprinkler  of  the  Church  ? 

My  readers  themselves  will  gather  spirits  when  they 
now  hear  that  our  Quintus,  during  the  outshaking  of  the 
poor-bag,  was  invited  by  the  Senior  to  come  over  in  the 
afternoon  ;  and  to  them  it  will  be  little  less  gratifying  than 
if  he  had  invited  themselves.  But  what  will  they  say, 
when  they  get  home  with  him  to  mother  and  dinner-table, 
both  already  clad  in  their  white  Sunday  dress  ;  and  behold 
the  large  cake  which  Friiulein  Thiennette  (Stephanie)  has 
rolled  from  her  peel  ?  In  the  first  place,  however,  they 
will  wish  to  know  who  she  is. 

She  is,  —  for  if  (according  to  Lessing),  in  the  very  ex- 
cellence of  the  Ihad,  we  neglect  the  personalities  of  its 
author ;  the  same  thing  will  apply  to  the  fate  of  several 
authors,  for  instance,  to  my  own  ;  but  an  authoress  of  cakes 
must  not  be  forgotten  in  the  excellence  of  her  baking,  — 
Thiennette  is  a  poor,  indigent,  insolvent  young  lady  ;  has 


84  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN 

not  much,  except  years,  of  which  she  counts  five-and- 
twentj  ;  no  near  relations  living  now  ;  no  acquirements 
(for  in  literature  she  does  not  even  know  Werier)  except 
economical ;  reads  no  books,  not  even  mine  ;  inhabits,  that 
is,  watches  like  a  wardeness,  quite  alone,  the  thirteen 
void,  disfurnished  chambers  of  the  Castle  of  Hukelum, 
w^hich  belongs  to  the  Dragoon  Rittmeister  Aufhammer, 
at  present  resident  in  his  other  mansion  of  Schadeck  ;  on 
occasion,  she  commands  and  feeds  his  soccagers  and  hand- 
maids ;  and  can  write  herself  By  the  grace  of  God  — 
w^hich,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  the  country  nobles  did 
as  well  as  princes,  —  for  she  lives  by  the  grace  of  man,  at 
least  of  woman,  the  Lady  Rittmeisterinn  Aufhammer's 
grace,  who,  at  all  times,  blesses  those  vassals  whom  her 
husband  curses.  But,  in  the  breast  of  the  orphaned 
Thiennette,  lay  a  sugared  marchpane  heart,  which,  for 
very  love,  you  could  have  devoured ;  her  fate  was  hard, 
but  her  soul  was  soft ;  she  was  modest,  courteous,  and 
timid,  but  too  much  so ;  —  cheerfully  and  coldly  she  re- 
ceived the  most  cutting  humiliations  in  Schadeck,  and 
felt  no  pain,  and  not  till  some  days  after  did  she  see  it  all 
clearly,  and  then  these  cuts  began  sharply  to  bleed,  and 
she  wept  in  her  loneliness  over  her  lot. 

It  is  hard  for  me  to  give  a  light  tone,  after  this  deep 
one,  and  to  add,  that  Fixlein  had  been  almost  brought  up 
beside  her,  and  that  she,  his  school-moiety  over  with  the 
Senior,  while  the  latter  was  training  himibr  the  dignities 
of  the  Third  Form,  had  learned  the  Verba  Anomala  along 
with  him. 

The  Achilles'-shield  of  the  cake,  jagged  and  embossed 
with  carved  w^ork  of  brown  scales,  was  whirling  round  in 
the  Quintus  like  a  swing-wheel  of  hungry  and  thankful 
ideas.     Of  that  philosophy  which  despises  eating,  and  of 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  85 

that  high  breeding  which  wastes  it,  he  had  not  so  much 
about  him  as  belongs  to  the  ungratefulness  of  such  culti- 
vated persons ;  but  for  his  platter  of  meat,  for  his  dinner 
of  herbs,  he  could  never  give  thanks  enough. 

Innocent  and  contented,  the  quadruple  dinner-party  — 
for  the  Shock  with  his  cover  under  the  stove  cannot  be 
omitted  —  now  began  their  Feast  of  Sweet  Bread,  their 
Feast  of  Honor  for  Thiennette,  their  Grove-feast  in  the 
garden.  It  may  truly  be  a  subject  of  wonder  how  a  man 
who  has  not,  like  the  King  of  France,  four  hundred  and 
forty-eight  persons  (the  hundred  and  sixty-one  Gargons 
de  la  Maisonbouche  I  do  not  reckon)  in  his  kitchen,  nor  a 
Fruiterie  of  thirty-one  human  bipeds,  nor  a  Pastry-cook- 
ery of  three-and-twenty,  nor  a  daily  expenditure  of  387 
Livres  21  Sous,  —  how  such  a  man,  I  say,  can  eat  with 
any  satisfaction.  Nevertheless,  to  me,  a  cooking  mother 
is  as  dear  as  a  whole  royal  cooking  household,  given  rather 
to  feed  upon  me  than  to  feed  me.  —  The  most  precious 
fragments  which  the  Biographer  and  the  World  can  gather 
from  this  meal  consist  of  here  and  there  an  edifying  piece 
of  table-talk.  The  mother  had  much  to  tell.  Thiennette 
is  this  night,  she  mentions,  for  the  first  time,  to  put  on  her 
morning  promenade-dress  of  white  muslin,  as  also  a  satin 
girdle  and  steel  buckle  ;  but,  adds  she,  it  will  not  sit  her ; 
as  the  Rittmeisterinn  (for  this  lady  used  to  hang  her  cast 
clothes  on  Thiennette,  as  Catholics  do  their  cast  crutches 
and  sores  on  their  patron  Saints)  was  much  thicker. 
Good  women  grudge  each  other  nothing  save  only  clothes, 
husbands,  and  flax.  In  the  fancy  of  the  Quintus,  by  virtue 
of  this  apparel,  a  pair  of  angel  pinions  were  sprouting  forth 
from  the  shoulder-blades  of  Thiennette  ;  for  him  a  gar- 
ment was  a  sort  of  hollow  half-man,  to  whom  only  the 
nobler  parts  and  the  first  principles  were  wanting ;  he 


86  LIFE    OF    QUIXTU5    FIXLEIN. 

honored  these  wrappages  and  hulls  of  our  interior,  not  as 
an  Elegant,  or  a  Critic  of  Beauty,  but  because  it  was  not 
possible  for  him  to  despise  aught  which  he  saw  others 
honoring.  Further,  the  good  mother  read  to  him.  as  it 
were,  the  monumental  inscription  of  his  father,  who  had 
sunk  into  the  arms  of  Death  in  the  thirty-second  year  of 
his  age,  from  a  cause  which  I  explain  not  here,  but  in  a 
future  Letter-box,  having  too  much  affection  for  the  reader. 
Our  Quintus  could  not  sate  himself  with  hearing  of  his 
father. 

The  fairest  piece  of  news  was.  that  Frilulein  Thiennette 
had  sent  word  to-day,  *•  he  might  visit  Her  Ladyship  to- 
morrow, as  My  Lord,  his  godtather,  was  to  be  absent  in 
town."  This,  however.  I  must  explain.  Old  Aufhammer 
was  called  B^fdius,  and  was  Fixlein's  godfather ;  but  he 
—  though  the  Eittmeisterinn  duly  covered  the  cradle  of 
the  child  with  niirhtly  offerings,  with  flesh-tithes  and  grain- 
tithes — "had  frugally  made  him  no  christening  present, 
except  that  of  his  name,  which  proved  to  be  the  very 
balefullest.  For,  our  Egidius  Fixlein,  with  his  Shock, 
which,  by  reason  of  the  French  convulsions,  had,  in  com- 
pany with  other  emigrants,  rim  off  from  Xantes,  was  but 
lately  returned  from  college  —  when  he  and  his  dog.  as 
iU-luck  would  have  it,  went  to  walk  in  the  Hukelum 
wood.  Xow.  as  the  Quintus  was  ever  and  anon  crying 
out  to  his  attendant:  "  Coosh.  Schil"  (Couche  Gilles),  it 
must  apparently  have  been  the  Devil  that  had  just  then 
planted  the  Lord  of  Aufhammer  among  the  trees  and 
bushes  in  such  a  way.  that  this  whole  travestying  and 
docking  of  his  name  —  for  Gilles  means  Egidius  —  must 
fall  directly  into  his  ear.  Fixlein  could  neither  speak 
French,  nor  any  offence  to  mortal :  he  knew  not  head  or 
tail  of  what  couche  signified ;  a  word,  which,  in  Paris, 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  8/ 

even  the  plebeian  dogs  are  now  in  the  habit  of  saying  to 
their  valets  de  cliiens.  But  there  were  three  things  which 
Von  Auf  hammer  never  recalled,  —  his  error,  his  anger, 
and  his  word.  The  provokee,  therefore,  determined  that 
the  plebeian  provoker  and  honor-stealer  should  never 
more  speak  to  him,  or  —  get  a  doit  from  him. 

I  return.  After  dinner  he  gazed  out  of  the  little  win- 
dow into  the  garden,  and  saw  his  path  of  life  dividing  into 
four  branches,  leading  towards  just  as  many  skyward  As- 
censions ;  towards  the  Ascension  into  the  Parsonage,  and 
that  into  the  Castle  to  Thiennette,  for  this  day ;  and  to- 
wards the  third  into  Schadeck  for  the  morrow  ;  and  lastly, 
into  every  house  in  Hukelum  as  the  fourth.  And  now, 
when  the  mother  had  long  enough  kept  cheerfully  gliding 
about  on  tiptoe,  "  not  to  disturb  him  in  studying  his  Latin 
Bible  "  (the  Vulgatd),  that  is,  in  reading  the  Litteraturzei- 
tung^  he  at  last  rose  to  his  own  feet ;  and  the  humble  joy 
of  the  mother  ran  long  after  the  courageous  son,  who  dared 
to  go  forth  and  speak  to  a  Senior,  quite  unappalled.  Yet 
it  was  not  without  reverence  that  he  entered  the  dwellino: 
of  his  old,  rather  gray  than  bald-headed,  teacher,  who  was 
not  only  Virtue  itself,  but  also  Hunger,  eating  frequently, 
and  with  the  appetite  of  Pharaoh's  lean  kine.  A  school- 
man that  expects  to  become  a  professor  will  scarcely  deign 
to  cast  an  eye  on  a  pastor ;  but  one  who  is  himself  look- 
ing up  to  a  parsonage  as  to  his  working-house  and  breed- 
ing-house, knows  how  to  value  such  a  character.  The 
new  parsonage  —  as  if  it  had,  like  a  Casa  Santa,  come 
flying  out  of  Erlang,  or  the  Berlin  Friedrichs-strasse,  and 
ahghted  in  Hukelum  —  was  for  the  Quintus  a  Temple  of 
the  Sun,  and  the  Senior  a  Priest  of  the  Sun.  To  be 
Parson  there  himself  was  a  thousfht  overlaid  with  viro^in 
honey ;  such  a  thought  as  occurs  but  one  other  time  in 


88  LIFE    OF    QUIXTUS    FIXLEIN. 

History,  namely,  in  the  bead  of  Hannibal,  wben  he  pro- 
jected stepping  over  the  Alps,  that  is  to  say,  over  the 
threshold  of  Rome. 

The  landlord  and  his  guest  formed  an  excellent  hureau 
dCesprit ;  people  of  office,  especially  of  the  same  office, 
have  more  to  tell  each  other,  namely,  their  own  history, 
than  your  idle  May-chafers  and  Court-celestials,  who  must 
speak  only  of  other  people's.  —  The  Senior  made  a  soft 
transition  from  his  ii'on-ware  (in  the  stable  furniture),  to 
the  golden  age  of  his  Academic  life,  of  which  such  people 
like  as  much  to  think,  as  poets  do  of  their  childhood.  So 
good  as  he  was,  he  still  half  joyfully  recollected  that  he 
had  once  been  less  so ;  but  joyful  remembrances  of  wrong 
actions  are  their  half  repetition,  as  repentant  remembrances 
of  good  ones  are  their  half  abolishment. 

Courteously  and  kindly  did  Zebediius  (who  could  not 
even  enter  in  his  Notebook  the  name  of  a  person  of  qual- 
ity without  writing  an  H.  for  Herr  before  it)  listen  to  the 
Academic  Saturnalia  of  the  old  gentleman,  who  in  TTit- 
tenberg  had  toped  as  well  as  written,  and  thirsted  not 
more  for  the  Hippocrene  than  for  Gukguk.* 

Herr  Jerusalem  has  observed  that  the  barbarism,  which 
often  springs  up  close  on  the  brightest  efflorescence  of  the 
sciences,  is  a  sort  of  strengthening  mud-bath,  good  for 
averting  the  over-refinement  wherewith  such  efflorescence 
always  threatens  us.  I  believe  that  a  man  who  considers 
how  high  the  sciences  have  mounted  with  our  upper  classes, 
—  for  instance  with  every  Patrician's  son  in  Xiirnberg, 
to  whom  the  public  must  present  1000  florins  for  studying 
with,  —  I  believe  that  such  a  man  will  not  grudge  the  Son 
of  the  Muses  a  certain  barbarous  Middle-age  (the  Burschen 
or  Student  Life,  as  it  is  called),  which  may  again  so  case- 
*  A  university  beer. 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  89 

harden  him  that  his  refinement  shall  not  go  beyond  the 
limits.  The  Senior,  while  in  Wittenberg,  had  protected 
the  one  hundred  and  eighty  Academic  Freedoms  —  so 
many  of  them  has  Petrus  RebufFus  summed  up*  — 
against  prescription,  and  lost  none  except  his  moral  one, 
of  which  truly  a  man,  even  in  a  convent,  can  seldom 
make  much.  This  gave  our  Quintus  courage  to  relate 
certain  pleasant  somersets  of  his  own,  which  at  Leipzig, 
under  the  Incubus-pressure  of  poverty,  he  had  contrived 
to  execute.  Let  us  hear  him.  His  landlord,  who  was  at 
the  same  time  Professor  and  Miser,  maintained  in  his 
enclosed  court  a  whole  community  of  hens.  Fixlein,  in 
company  with  three  room-mates,  without  difficulty  mas- 
tered the  rent  of  a  chamber,  or  closet.  In  general  their 
main  equipments,  like  Phcenixes,  existed  but  in  the  singu- 
lar number :  one  bed,  in  which  always  the  one  pair  slept 
before  midnight,  the  other  after  midnight,  like  nocturnal 
watchmen ;  one  coat,  in  which  one  after  the  other  they 
appeared  in  pubHc,  and  which,  like  a  watch-coat,  was  the 
national  uniform  of  the  company ;  and  several  other  ones, 
Unities  both  of  Interest  and  Place.  Nowhere  can  you 
collect  the  stress-memorials  and  siege-medals  of  Poverty 
more  pleasantly  and  philosophically  than  at  College ;  the 
Academic  burgher  exhibits  to  us  how  many  humorists  and 
Diogeneses  Germany  has  in  it.     Our  Unitarians  had  just 

*  From  Peter  I  will  copy  one  or  two  of  these  privileges ;  the  whole 
of  which  were  once,  at  the  origin  of  universities,  in  full  force.  For 
instance,  a  student  can  compel  a  citizen  to  let  him  his  house  and  his 
horse ;  an  injury,  done  even  to  his  relations,  must  be  made  good  four- 
fold; he  is  not  obliged  to  fulfil  the  written  commands  of  the  Pope;  the 
neighborhood  must  indemnify  him  for  what  is  stolen  from  him;  if  he 
and  a  non-student  are  living  at  variance,  the  latter  only  can  be  expelled 
from  the  boarding-house ;  a  Doctor  is  obliged  to  support  a  poor  student ; 
if  he  is  killed,  the  next  ten  houses  are  laid  under  interdict  till  the  mur- 
derer is  discovered;  his  legacies  are  not  abridged  hyfalcidia,  &c.,  &c. 


po  LIFE    OF    QUIXTUS    FIXLEIX. 

one  thing  four  times,  and  that  was  hunger.  The  Quintns 
related,  perhaps  with  a  too  pleasurable  enjoyment  of  the 
recollection,  how  one  of  this  famisliing  coro  i-^vented  means 
of  appropriating  the  Professor's  hens  as  just  ti'ibute,  or 
subsidies.  He  said  (he  was  a  Jurist),  they  must  once  for 
all  borrow  a  legal  fiction  from  the  Feudal  code,  and  look 
on  the  Professor  as  the  soccage  tenant,  to  whom  the 
usufruct  of  the  hen-yard  and  hen-house  belonged  ;  but 
on  themselves  as  the  feudal  superiors  of  the  same,  to 
whom  accordingly  the  vassal  was  bound  to  pay  his 
feudal  dues.  And  now.  iliat  the  Fiction  might  follow 
Nature,  continued  he  —  ^'fictio  sequitur  7iaturam,"  —  it 
behooved  them  to  lay  hold  of  said  Yule-hens,  by  direct 
personal  distraint.  But  into  the  court-yard  there  was  no 
getting.  The  feudalist,  therefore,  prepared  a  fishing-line  ; 
stuck  a  bread-pill  on  the  hook,  and  lowered  his  fishing- 
tackle,  anglewise,  down  into  the  court.  In  a  few  seconds 
the  barb  stuck  in  a  hen's  throat,  and  the  hen,  now  com- 
municating with  its  feudal  superior,  could  silently,  like 
ships  by  Archimedes,  be  heaved  aloft  to  the  hungry  air- 
fishing  society,  where,  according  to  circumstances,  the 
proper  ft-udal  name  and  title  of  possession  failed  not  to 
be  awaiting  her  ;  for  the  updrawn  fowls  were  now  de- 
nominated Christmas-fowls,  now  Forest-hens,  Baihff-hens, 
Pentecost  and  Simimer-heus.  "  I  begin,*'  said  the  anghng 
lord  of  the  manor,  *•  with  taking  Eutchej'-dues^  for  so  we 
call  the  triple  and  quintuple  of  the  original  quitrent,  when 
the  vas-al,  as  is  the  case  here,  has  long  neglected  pay- 
ment.'"* The  Professor,  like  any  other  prince,  observed 
with  sorrow  the  decreasing  popukition  of  his  hen-yard,  for 
his  subjects,  hke  the  Hebrews,  v.-ere  d}-ing  by  enumera- 
tion. At  last  he  had  the  happiness,  while  reading  his 
lecture  —  he  was  just  come  to  the  subject  of  Forest  Sail 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  9I 

and  Coin  Regalities  —  to  descry  through  the  window  of 
his  auditorium  a  quitrent  hen  suspended,  hke  Ignatius 
Loyola  in  prayer,  or  Juno  in  her  punishment,  in  middle- 
air.  He  followed  the  incomprehensible  direct  ascension 
of  the  aeronautic  animal,  and  at  last  descried  at  the  upper 
window  the  attracting  artist,  and  animal-magnetizer,  who 
had  drawn  his  lot  for  dinner  from  the  hen-yard  below. 
Contrary  to  all  expectation,  he  terminated  this  fowling 
sport  sooner  than  his  Lecture  on  Regalities. 

Fixlein  walked  home,  amid  the  vesperal  melodies  of 
the  steeple  sounding-holes;  and  by  the  road  courteously 
took  off  his  hat  before  the  empty  windows  of  the  Castle. 
Houses  of  quality  were  to  him  like  persons  of  quality,  as 
in  India  the  Pagoda  at  once  represents  the  temple  and  the 
god.  To  the  mother  he  brought  feigned  compliments, 
which  she  repaid  with  authentic  ones  ;  for  this  afternoon 
she  had  been  over,  with  her  .historical  tongue  and  nature- 
interrogating  eye,  visiting  the  white-muslin  Thiennette. 
The  mother  was  wont  to  show  her  every  spare-penny 
which  he  dropped  into  her  large  empty  purse,  and  so  raise 
him  in  the  good  graces  of  the  Fraiilein ;  for  women  feel 
their  hearts  much  more  attracted  towards  a  son,  who  ten- 
derly reserves  for  a  mother  some  of  their  benefits,  than 
we  do  to  a  daughter  anxiously  caring  for  her  father ;  per- 
haps from  a  hundred  causes,  and  this  among  the  rest,  that 
in  their  experience  of  sons  and  husbands  they  are  more 
used  to  find  these  persons  mere  six-feet  thunder-clouds, 
forked  waterspouts,  or  even  reposing  tornadoes. 

Blessed  Quintus !  on  whose  Life  this  other  distinction, 
like  an  order  of  nobility,  does  also  shine,  that  thou  canst 
tell  it  over  to  thy  mother  ;  as,  for  example,  this  past  after- 
noon in  the  parsonage.  Thy  joy  flows  into  another  heart, 
and  streams  back  from  it,  redoubled,  into  thy  own.     There 


92  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

is  a  closer  approximating  of  hearts,  and  also  of  sounds, 
than  that  of  the  Echo  ;  the  highest  approximation  melts 
Tone  and  Echo  into  Resonance  together. 

It  is  historically  certain  that  both  of  them  supped  this 
evening  ;  and  that  instead  of  the  whole  dinner  fragments 
which  to-morrow  might  themselves  represent  a  dinner, 
nothing  but  the  cake-ofFering  or  pudding  was  laid  upon  the 
altar  of  the  table.  The  mother,  who  for  her  own  child 
would  willingly  have  neglected  not  herself  only,  but  all 
other  people,  now  made  a  motion  that  to  the  Quintaner, 
who  was  sporting  out  of  doors  and  baiting  a  bird  instead 
of  himself,  there  should  no  crumb  of  the  precious  pastry 
be  given,  but  only  table-bread  without  the  crust.  But  the 
Schoolman  had  a  Christian  disposition,  and  said  that  it 
was  Sunday,  and  the  young  man  liked  something  delicate 
to  eat  as  well  as  he.  Fixlein  —  the  counterpart  of  great 
men  and  geniuses  —  was  inclined  to  treat,  to  gift,  to  grati- 
fy a  serving  housemate,  rather  than  a  man  who  is  for  the 
first  time  passing  through  the  gate,  and  at  the  next  post- 
stage  will  forget  both  his  hospitable  landlord  and  the  last 
postmaster.  On  the  whole,  our  Quintus  had  a  touch  of 
honor  in  him,  and  notwithstanding  his  thrift  and  sacred 
regard  for  money,  he  willingly  gave  it  away  in  cases  of 
honor,  and  unwillingly  in  cases  of  overpowering  sympa- 
thy, which  too  painfully  filled  the  cavities  of  his  heart, 
and  emptied  those  of  his  purse.  Whilst  the  Quintaner 
was  exercising  the  jus  compascui  on  the  cake,  and  six 
arms  were  peacefully  resting  on  Thiennette's  free-table, 
Fixlein  read  to  himself  and  the  company  the  Flachsenfin- 
gen  Address-calendar  ;  any  higher  thing,  except  Meusel's 
Gelehrtes  Deutscldand,'^  he  could  not   figure;   the  Kam- 

*  Literary  Germany,  a  work  (I  believe  of  no  great  merit)  which 
Richter  often  twitches  in  the  same  style.  —  Ed. 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  93 

merherrs  and  Raths  of  the  Calendar  went  tickling  over 
his  tongue  hke  the  raisins  of  the  cake  ;  and  of  the  more 
rich  church-livings  he,  by  reading,  as  it  were  levied  a 
tithe. 

He  purposely  remained  his  own  Edition  in  Sunday 
Wove-paper ;  I  mean,  he  did  not  lay  away  his  Sunday 
coat,  even  when  the  Prayer-bell  tolled ;  for  he  had  still 
much  to  do. 

After  supper  he  was  just  about  visiting  the  Fraulein, 
when  he  descried  her  in  person,  like  a  lily  dipped  in  the 
red  twilight,  in  the  Castle  garden,  whose  western  limit  his 
house  constituted,  the  southern  one  being  the  Chinese 
wall  of  the  Castle  ....  By  the  way,  how  I  got  to  the 
knowledge  of  all  this,  what  Letter-boxes  are,  whether  I 
myself  was  ever  there,  &c.,  &c.  —  the  whole  of  this  shall, 
upon  my  life,  be  soon  and  faithfully  communicated  to  the 
reader,  and  that  too  in  the  present  Book. 

Fixlein  hopped  forth  like  a  Will-o'-wisp  into  the  gar- 
den, whose  flower-perfume  was  mingling  with  his  supper- 
perfume.  No  one  bowed  lower  to  a  nobleman  than  he, 
not  out  of  plebeian  servility,  nor  of  self-interested  cringing, 
but  because  he  thought  "  a  nobleman  was  a  nobleman." 
But  in  this  case  his  bow,  instead  of  falling  forwards,  fell 
obliquely  to  the  right,  as  it  were  after  his  hat ;  for  he  had 
not  risked  taking  a  stick  with  him  ;  and  hat  and  stick 
were  his  proppage  and  balance-wheel,  in  short,  his  bowing- 
gear,  without  which  it  was  out  of  his  power  to  produce 
any  courtly  bow,  had  you  offered  him  the  High  Church 
of  Hamburg  for  so  doing.  Thiennette's  mirthfulness  soon 
unfolded  his  crumpled  soul  into  straight  form^  and  into  the 
proper  tone.  He  delivered  her  a  long,  neat  Thanksgiving 
and  Harvest  sermon  for  the  scaly  cake ;  which  appeared 
to  her  at  once  kind  and  tedious.     Younor  women  without 


94  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

the  polish  of  high  life  reckon  tedious  pedantry,  merely  like 
snuffing,  one  of  the  necessary  ingredients  of  a  man ;  they 
reverence  us  infinitely ;  and  as  Lambert  could  never 
speak  to  the  King  of  Prussia,  by  reason  of  his  sun-eyes, 
except  in  the  dark,  so  they,  I  believe,  often  like  better  — 
also  by  reason  of  our  sublime  air  —  if  they  can  catch  us 
in  the  dark  too.  Him  Thiennette  edified  by  the  Imperial 
History  of  Herr  von  Aufhammer  and  Her  Ladyship  his 
spouse,  who  meant  to  put  him,  the  Qiiintus,  in  her  will ; 
her  he  edified  by  his  Literary  History,  as  relating  to  him- 
self and  the  Subrector ;  how,  for  instance,  he  was  at  pres- 
ent vicariating  in  the  Second  Form,  and  ruling  over 
scholars  as  long  in  stature  as  himself.  And  thus  did  the 
two  in  happiness,  among  red  bean-blossoms,  red  May-chaf- 
ers, before  the  red  of  the  twilight  burning  lower  and  low- 
er on  the  horizon,  walk  to  and  fro  in  the  garden ;  and  turn 
always  with  a  smile  as  they  approached  the  head  of  the 
ancient  gardeneress,  standing  like  a  window-bust  through 
the  little  lattice,  which  opened  in  the  bottom  of  a  larger 
one. 

To  me  it  is  incomprehensible  he  did  not  fall  in  love.  I 
know  his  reasons,  indeed.  In  the  first  place,  she  had 
nothing ;  secondly,  he  had  nothing,  and  school-debts  to 
boot ;  thirdly,  her  genealogical  tree  was  a  boundary  tree 
and  warning-post ;  fourthly,  his  hands  were  tied  up  by 
another  nobler  thought,  which,  for  good  cause,  is  yet  re- 
served from  the  reader.  Nevertheless  —  Fixlein  !  I 
durst  not  have  been  in  thy  place  !  I  should  have  looked 
at  her,  and  remembered  her  virtues  and  our  school-years, 
and  then  have  drawn  forth  my  too  fusible  heart,  and  pre- 
sented it  to  her  as  a  bill  of  exchange,  or  insinuated  it  as 
a  summons.  For  I  should  have  considered  that  she  re- 
sembled a  nun  in  two  senses,  in  her  good  heart  and  in  her 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  95 

good  pastry ;  that,  in  spite  of  her  intercourse  with  male 
vassals,  she  was  no  Charles  Genevieve  Louise  Auguste 
Timothe  Eon  de  Beaumont,*  but  a  smooth,  fair-haired, 
white-capped  dove ;  that  she  sought  more  to  please  her 
own  sex  than  ours  ;  that  she  showed  a  melting  heart,  not 
previously  borrowed  from  the  Circulating  Library,  in 
tears,  for  which  in  her  innocence  she  rather  took  shame 
than  credit.  —  At  the  very  first  cheapening,  I  should^  on 
these  grounds,  have  been  out  with  my  heart.  —  Had  I 
fully  reflected,  Quintus!  that  I  knew  her  as  myself;  that 
ber  hands  and  mine  (to  wit,  had  I  been  thou)  had  both 
been  guided  by  the  same  Senior  to  Latin  penmanship  ; 
that  we  two,  when  little  children,  had  kissed  each  other 
before  the  glass,  to  see  whether  the  two  image-children 
would  do  it  likewise  in  the  mirror;  that  often  we  had  put 
hands  of  both  sexes  into  the  same  muff,  and  there  played 
with  them  in  secret ;  had  I,  lastly,  considered  that  we 
were  here  standing  before  the  glass-house,  now  splendent 
in  the  enamel  of  twilight,  and  that  on  the  cold  panes  of 
this  glass-house  we  two  (she  within,  I  without)  had  often 
pressed  our  warm  cheeks  together,  parted  only  by  the 
thickness  of  the  glass,  —  then  had  I  taken  this  poor  gen- 
tle soul,  pressed  asunder  by  Fate,  and  seeing,,  amid  her 
thunder-clouds,  no  higher  elevation  to  part  them  and  pro- 
tect her  than  the  grave,  and  had  drawn  her  to  my  own 
soul,  and  warmed  her  on  my  heart,  and  encomp-assed  her 
about  with  my  eyes. 

In  truth,  the  Quintus  would  have  done  so  too,  had  not 
the  above-mentioned  nobler  thought,  which  I  yet  disclose 
not,  kept  him  back.  Softened,  without  knowing  the  cause, 
—  (accordingly  he  gave  his  mother  a  kiss,)  —  and  blessed 
without  having  had  a  literary  conversation  ;  and  dismissed 

*  See  ScJimehle's  Journey,  p.  289 — Ed. 


96  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

with  a  freight  of  humble  compliments,  which  he  was  to 
disload  on  the  morrow  before  the  Dragoon  Rittmeisterinn, 
he  returned  to  his  little  cottage,  and  looked  yet  a  long 
while  out  of  its  dai'k  windows,  at  the  light  ones  of  the 
Castle.  And  then,  when  the  first  quarter  of  the  moon 
was  setting,  that  is,  about  midnight,  he  again,  in  the  cool 
sigh  of  a  mild,  fanning,  moist,  and  directly  heart-address- 
ing night-breeze,  opened  the  eyelids  of  a  sight  already 

sunk  in  dreaming 

Sleep,  for  to-day  thou  hast  done  naught  ill !  I,  whilst 
the  drooping,  shut  flower-bell  of  thy  spirit  sinks  on  thy 
pillow,  will  look  into  the  breezy  night  over  thy  morning 
footpath,  which,  through  the  translucent  little  wood,  is  to 
lead  thee  to  Schadeck,  to  thy  patroness.  All  prosperity 
attend  thee,  thou  foolish  Quintus  !  — 


SECOND    LETTER-BOX. 


Frau  von  Aufhammer. 


Childhood-Eesonance. 

CEAFT. 


Author- 


he  early  piping  which  the  little  thrush,  last 
night  adopted  by  the  Quintaner  from  its  nest, 
started  for  victual  about  two  o'clock,  soon  drove 
our  Quintus  into  his  clothes  ;  whose  calender- 
press  and  parallel-ruler  the  hands  of  his  careful  mother 
had  been,  for  she  would  not  send  him  to  the  Rittmeisterinn 
"like  a  runagate  dog."  The  Shock  was  incarcerated, 
the  Quintaner  taken  with  him,  as  likewise  many  whole- 
some rules  from  Mother  Fixlein,  how  to  conduct  him- 
self towards  the  Rittmeisterinn.  But  the  son  answered  : 
"  Mamma,  when  a  man  has  been  in  company,  like  me, 
with  high  people,  with  a  Fraulein  Thiennette,  he  soon 
knows  whom  he  is  speaking  to,  and  what  polished  manners 
and  Saver  di  veaver  (Savoir  vivre)  require." 

He  arrived  with  the  Quintaner,  and  green  fingers  (dyed 
with  the  leaves  he  had  plucked  on  the  path),  and  with  a 
half-nibbled  rose  between  his  teeth,  in  presence  of  the  sleek 
lackeys  of  Schacleck.  If  women  are  flowers  —  though  as 
often  silk  and  Italian  and  gum-flowers  as  botanical  ones  — 
then  was  Frau  von  Aufhammer  a  ripe  flower,  with  (adi- 
pose) neck-bulb,  and  tuberosity  (of  lard).     Already,  in 


98  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

the  half  of  her  body,  cut  away  from  life  by  the  apoplexy, 
she  lay  upon  her  lard-pillo>7  but  as  on  a  softer  grave  ; 
nevertheless,  the  portion  of  her  that  remained  was  at  once 
lively,  pious,  and  proud.  Her  heart  was  a  flowing  cornu- 
copia to  all  men,  yet  this  not  from  philanthropy,  but  from 
rigid  devotion  ;  the  lower  classes  she  assisted,  cherished, 
and  despised,  regarding  nothing  in  them,  except  it  were 
their  piety.  She  received  the  bowing  Quintus  with  the 
back-bowing  air  of  a  patroness  ;  yet  she  brightened  into 
a  look  of  kindliness  at  his  disloadiug  of  the  compUments 
from  Thiennette. 

She  began  the  conversation,  and  long  continued  it  alone, 
and  said,  —  yet  without  losing  the  inflation  of  pride  from 
her  countenance,  —  "  She  should  soon  die  ;  but  the  god- 
children of  her  husband  she  would  remember  in  her  will." 
Further,  she  told  him  directly  in  the  face,  which  stood 
there  all  over-written  witli  the  Fourth  Commandment  be- 
fore her,  that  ^'  he  must  not  build  upon  a  settlement  in 
Hukelum ;  but  to  the  Flachsenfingen  Conrectorate  (to 
which  the  Burgermeister  and  Council  had  the  right  of 
nomination)  she  hoped  to  promote  him,  as  it  was  from  the 
then  Burgermeister  that  she  bought  her  coffee,  and  from 
the  Town-Syndic  (he  di'ove  a  considerable  wholesale  and 
retail  trade  in  Hamburg  candles)  that  she  bought  both  her 
wax  and  tallow  lights." 

And  now  by  degrees  he  arrived  at  his  humble  petition, 
when  she  asked  him  sick-news  of  Senior  Astmann,  who 
guided  himself  more  by  Luther's  Catechism  than  by  the 
Catechism  of  Health.  She  was  Astmann's  patroness  in  a 
stricter  than  ecclesiastical  sense  ;  and  she  even  confessed 
that  she  would  soon  follow  this  true  shepherd  of  souls, 
when  she  heard,  here  at  Schadeck,  the  sound  of  his  fu- 
neral-bell.    Such  strange  chemical  afiinities  exist  between 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  99 

our  dross  and  our  silver  veins  ;  as,  for  example,  here  be- 
tween Pride  and  Love ;  and  I  could  wish  that  we  would 
pardon  this  hypostatic  union  in  all  persons,  as  we  do  it 
in  the  fail*,  who,  with  all  their  faults,  are  nevertheless 
by  us  —  as,  according  to  Du  Fay,  iron,  though  mixed 
with  any  other  metal,  is  by  the  magnet  —  attracted  and 
held  fast. 

Supposing  even  that  the  Devil  had,  in  some  idle  minute, 
sown  a  handful  or  two  of  the  seeds  of  Envy  in  our  Quin- 
tus's  soul,  yet  they  had  not  sprouted  ;  and  to-day  especially 
they  did  not,  when  he  heard  the  praises  of  a  man  who  had 
been  his  teacher,  and  who  —  what  he  reckoned  a  Titulado 
of  the  Earth,  not  from  vanity,  but  from  piety  —  was  a 
clergyman.  So  much,  however,  is,  according  to  History, 
not  to  be  denied  ;  that  he  now  straightway  came  forth 
with  his  petition  to  the  noble  lady,  signifying  that  "  indeed 
he  would  cheerfully  content  himself  for  a  few  years  in  the 
school ;  but  yet  in  the  end  he  longed  to  be  in  some  small 
quiet  priestly  office."  To  her  question,  "  But  was  he 
orthodox?"  he  answered,  that  "he  hoped  so;  he  had,  in 
Leipzig,  not  only  attended  all  the  pubHc  lectures  of  Dr. 
Burscher,  but  also  had  taken  private  instructions  from 
several  sound  teachers  of  the  faith,  well  knowing  that  the 
Consistorium,  in  its  examinations  as  to  purity  of  doctrine, 
was  now  more  strict  than  formerly." 

The  sick  lady  required  him  to  make  a  proof-shot, 
namely,  to  administer  to  her  a  sick-bed  exhortation.  By 
Heaven !  he  administered  to  her  one  of  the  best.  Her 
pride  of  birth  now  crouched  before  his  pride  of  office  and 
priesthood  ;  for  though  he  could  not,  with  the  Dominican 
monk,  Alanus  de  Rupe,  believe  that  a  priest  was  greater 
than  God,  inasmuch  as  the  latter  could  only  make  a 
World,  but  the  former  a  God  (in  the  mass)  ;  yet  he  could 


lOO  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

not  but  fall  in  with  Hostiensis,  who  shows  that  the  priestly- 
dignity  is  seven  thousand  six  hundred  and  forty-four 
times  greater  than  the  kingly,  the  Sun  being  just  so  many 
times  greater  than  the  Moon.  But  a  Rittmeisterinn  — 
she  shrinks  into  absolute  nothing  before  a  parson. 

In  the  servants'  hall  he  applied  to  the  lackeys  for  the 
last  annual  series  of  the  Hamburg  Political  Journal ;  per- 
ceiving that  with  these  historical  documents  of  the  time 
they  were  scandalously  papering  the  buttons  of  travelling 
raiment.  In  gloomy  harvest  evenings,  he  could  now  sit 
down  and  read  for  himself  what  good  news  were  trans- 
piring in  the  political  world  —  twelve  months  ago. 

On  a  Triumphal  Car,  full-laden  with  laurel,  and  to 
which  Hopes  alone  were  yoked,  he  drove  home  at  night, 
and  by  the  road  advised  the  Quintaner  not  to  be  puffed 
up  with  any  earthly  honor,  but  silently  to  thank  God, 
as  himself  was  now  doing. 

The  thickset  blooming  grove  of  his  four  canicular 
weeks,  and  the  flying  tumult  of  blossoms  therein,  are 
already  painted  on  three  of  the  sides.  I  will  now  clutch 
blindfold  into  his  days,  and  bring  out  one  of  them  ;  one 
smiles  and  sends  forth  its  perfumes  like  another. 

Let  us  take,  for  instance,  the  Saint's  day  of  his  mother, 
Clara,  the  twelfth  of  August.  In  the  morning,  he  had 
perennial,  fire-proof  joys,  that  is  to  say.  Employments. 
For  he  was  writing,  as  I  am  doing.  Truly,  if  Xerxes 
proposed  a  prize  for  the  invention  of  a  new  pleasure',  any 
man  who  had  sat  down  to  write  his  thoughts  on  the  prize- 
question  had  the  new  pleasure  already  among  his  fingers. 
I  know  only  one  thing  sweeter  than  making  a  book,  and 
that  is,  to  project  one.  Fixlein  used  to  write  little  works, 
of  the  twelfth  part  of  an  alphabet  in  size,  which  in  their 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  lOl 

manuscript  state  he  got  bound  by  the  bookbinder  in  gilt 
boards,  and  betitled  with  printed  letters,  and  then  inserted 
them  among  the  literary  ranks  of  his  book-board.  Every 
one  thought  they  were  novelties  printed  in  writing  types. 
He  had  labored  —  I  shall  omit  his  less  interesting  per- 
formances—  at  a  Collection  of  Errors  of  the  Press,  in 
German  writings  ;  he  compared  Errata  with  each  other  ; 
showed  which  occurred  most  frequently  ;  observed  that 
important  results  were  to  be  drawn  from  this,  and  advised 
the  reader  to  draw  them. 

Moreover,  he  took  his  place  among  the  German  3faso- 
rites.  He  observes  with  great  justice  in  his  Preface : 
"  The  Jews  had  their  Masora  to  show,  which  told  them 
how  often  every  letter  was  to  be  found  in  their  Bible  ;  for 
example,  the  Aleph  (the  A)  42,377  times ;  how  many 
verses  there  are  in  which  all  the  consonants  appear  (there 
are  26  verses),  or  only  eighty  (there  are  3)  ;  how  many 
verses  we  have  into  which  42  words  and  160  consonants 
enter  (there  is  just  one,  Jeremiah  xxi.  7)  ;  which  is  the 
middle  letter  in  certain  books  (in  the  Pentateuch,  it  is  in 
Leviticus  xi.  42,  the  noble  V  *),  or  in  the  whole  Bible 
itself.  But  where  have  we  Christians  any  similar  Masora 
for  Luther's  Bible  to  show  ?  Has  it  been  accurately  in- 
vestigated which  is  the  middle  word,  or  the  middle  letter 
here,  which  vowel  appears  seldomest,  and  how  often  each 
vowel?  Thousands  of  Bible-Christians  go  out  of  the 
world,  without  ever  knowing  that  the  German  A  occurs 
323,015  times  (therefore  above  7  times  oftener  than  the 
Hebrew  one)  in  their  Bible." 

I  could  wish  that  inquirers  into  Biblical  Literature 
among    our  Reviewers  would  publicly  let  me  know  if, 

*  As  in  the  State.  —  [V.  er  Von,  c?e,  of,  being  the  symbol  of  the 
nobiUty,  the  middle  order  of  the  State.  —  Ed.] 


I02  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

on  a  more  accurate  summation,  they  find  this  number 
incorrect.* 

Much  also  did  the  Quintus  collect ;  he  had  a  fine  Alma- 
nack Collection,  a  Catechism  and  Pamphlet  Collection  / 
also,  a  Collection  of  Advertisements,  which  he  began,  is  not 
so  incomplete  as  you  most  frequently  see  such  things. 
He  puts  high  value  on  his  Alphabetical  Lexicon  of  Ger- 
m,an  Subscribers  for  Books,  where  my  name  also  occurs 
among  the  Js. 

But  what  he  liked  best  to  produce  were  Schemes  of 
Books.  Accordingly,  he  sewed  together  a  large  work, 
wherein  he  merely  advised  the  Learned  of  things  they 
ought  to  introduce  in  Literary  History,  which  History  he 
rated  some  ells  higher  than  Universal  or  Lnperial  History. 
Li  his  Prolegomena  to  this  performance,  he  transiently 
submitted  to  the  Literary  republic  that  Hommel  had  given 
a  register  of  Jurists  who  were  sons  of  wh — ,  of  others  who 
had  become  Saints ;  that  Baillet  enumerates  the  Learned 
who  meant  to  write  something ;  and  Ancillon  those  who 
wrote  nothing  at  all ;  and  the  LUbeck  Superintendent 
Gotze,  those  who  were  shoemakers,  those  who  were 
drowned ;  and  Bernhard  those  whose  fortunes  and  history 
before  birth  were  interesting.  This  (he  could  now  con- 
tinue) should,  as  it  seems,  have  excited  us  to  similar  mus- 
ter-rolls and  matriculations  of  other  kinds  or  Learned  ; 
whereof  he  proposed  a  few  ;  for  example,  of  the  Learned 

*  In  Erlang,  my  petition  has  been  granted.  The  Bible  Institution  of 
that  town  have  found  instead  of  the  116,301  As,  which  Fixlein  at  first 
pretended  with  such  certainty  to  find  in  the  Bible-books  (which  false 
number  was  accordinglr  given  in  the  first  Edition  of  this  Work,  p.  81), 
the  above-mentioned  323,015;  which  (uncommonly  singular)  is  pre- 
cisely the  sum  of  all  the  letters  in  the  Koran  put  together.  See 
Liideke's  Beschr.  des  Turk.  Reichs  (Liideke's  Description  of  the 
Turkish  Empire.    JSew  edition,  1780). 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  103 

who  were  unlearned  ;  of  those  who  were  entire  rascals  ; 
of  such  as  wore  their  own  hair,  —  of  cue-preachers,  cue- 
psalmists,  cue-annalists,  and  so  forth  ;  of  the  Learned  who 
had  worn  black  leather  breeches,  of  others  who  had  worn 
rapiers ;  of  the  Learned  who  had  died  in  their  eleventh 
year,  —  in  their  twentieth,  —  twenty-first,  &c.,  —  in  their 
hundred  and  fiftieth,  of  which  he  knew  no  instance,  unless 
the  Beggar  Thomas  Parr  niight  be  adduced ;  of  the 
Learned  who  wrote  a  more  abominable  hand  than  the 
other  Learned  (whereof  we  know  only  E-olfinken  and  his 
letters,  which  were  as  long  as  his  hands*)  ;  or  of  the 
Learned  who  had  dipt  nothing  from  each  other  but  the 
beard  (whereof  no  instance  is  known,  save  that  of  Philel- 
phus  and  Timotheusf). 

Such  by-studies  did  he  carry  on  along  with  his  oflficial 
labors ;  but  I  think  the  State  in  viewing  these  matters  is 
actually  mad  :  it  compares  the  man  who  is  great  in  Phi- 
losophy and  Belles-Lettres  at  the  expense  of  his  jog-trot 
officialities,  to  concert-clocks,  which,  though  striking  their 
hours  in  flute-melodies,  are  worse  time-keepers  than  your 
gross,  stupid  steeple-clocks. 

To  return  to  St.  Clara's  day.  Fixlein,  after  such 
mental  exertions,  bolted  out  under  the  music-bushes  and 
rustling  trees ;  and  returned  not  again  out  of  warm  Na- 
ture, till  plate  and  chair  were  already  placed  at  the  table. 
In  the  course  of  the  repast,  something  occurred  which  a 
Biographer  must  not  omit ;  for  his  mother  had,  by  re- 
quest, been  wont  to  map  out  for  him,  during  the  process 
of  mastication,  the  chart  of  his  child's-world,  relating  all 

*  Paravicini  Singularin  de  viris  claris,  Cent.  I.  2. 

t  Ejusd.,  Cent.  II.  Philelphus  quarrelled  with  the  Greek  about  the 
quantity  of  a  syllable;  the  prize  or  bet  was  the  beard  of  the  van- 
quished.    Timotheus  lost  his. 


104  LIFE    OF    QUIXTUS    FIXLEIN. 

the  traits  'ivhich  in  anv  way  prefigured  what  he  had  now 
grown  to.  This,  perspective  sketch  of  his  early  Past  he 
committed  to  certain  Httle  leaves  which  merit  our  undi- 
vided attention.  For  such  leaves  exclusively,  containing 
scenes,  acts,  plays  of  liis  childhood,  he  used  chronologi- 
cally to  file  and  arrange  in  sepamte  drawers  in  a  httle 
child's-desk  of  his  ;  and  tlms  to  divide  his  Biography,  as 
Moser  did  his  PubHcistic  Materials,  into  separate  letter- 
boxes.  He  had  boxes  or  drawers  for  memorial-letters  of 
his  twelfth,  of  his  thirteenth,  fourteenth,  &c.,  of  his  twenty- 
first  year,  and  so  on.  TThenever  he  chose  to  conclude  a 
day  of  pedagogic  drudgery  by  an  evening  of  peculiar  rest, 
he  simply  pulled  out  a  letter-drawer,  a  register-bar  in  his 
Life-hand-organ,  and  recollected  the  whole. 

And  here  must  I,  in  reference  to  these  reviewing  Mutes, 
who  may  be  for  casting  the  noose  of  strangulation  round 
my  neck,  most  particularly  beg,  that,  before  doing  so  on 
account  of  my  Chapters  being  called  Letter-boxes,  they 
would  have  the  goodness  to  look  whose  blame  it  was,  and 
to  think  whether  I  could  possibly  help  it.  seeing  the  Quin- 
tus  had  divided  his  Biogi^aphy  into  such  Boxes  himself: 
they  have  Christian  bowels. 

But  about  his  elder  brother  he  put  no  saddening  ques- 
tion to  his  mother  ;  this  poor  boy  a  pecuhar  Fate  had  laid 
hold  of,  and  with  all  his  genial  endowment  dashed  to 
pieces  on  the  iceberg  of  Death.  For  he  chanced  to  leap 
on  an  ice-board  that  had  jammed  itself  among  several 
others ;  but  these  recoiled,  and  his  shot  forth  with  him  ; 
melted  away  as  it  floated  under  his  feet,  and  so  sunk  his 
heart  of  fire  amid  the  ice  and  waves.  It  grieved  his 
mother  that  he  was  not  found,  that  her  heai't  had  not 
been  han-owed  by  the  look  of  the  swoln  corpse.  —  O 
good  mother,  rather  thank  Grod  for  it !  — 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS   FIXLEIN.  105 

After  breakfast,  to  fortify  himself  with  new  vigor  for 
his  desk,  he  for  some  time  strolled  idly  over  the  house, 
and,  like  a  Police  Fire-inspector,  visited  all  the  nooks  of 
his  cottage,  to  gather  from  them  here  and  there  a  live 
ember  from  the  ash-covered  rejoicing-fire  of  his  childhood. 
He  mounted  to  the  garret,  to  the  empty  bird-coops  of  his 
father,  who  in  winter  had  been  a  birder ;  and  he  transiently 
reviewed  the  lumber  of  his  old  playthings,  which  were 
lying  in  the  netted  enclosure  of  a  large  canary  breeding- 
cage.  In  the  minds  of  children,  it  is  regular  little  forms, 
such  as  those  of  balls  and  dies,  that  impress  and  express 
themselves  most  forcibly.  From  this  may  the  reader 
explain  to  himself  Fixlein's  delight  in  the  red  acorn- 
blockhouse,  in  the  sparwork  glued  together  out  of  white 
chips  and  husks  of  potato-plums,  in  the  cheerful  glass- 
house of  a  cube-shaped  lantern,  and  other  the  like  pro- 
ducts of  his  early  architecture.  The  following,  however, 
I  explain  quite  differently ;  he  had  ventured,  without  leave 
given  from  any  lord  of  the  manor,  to  build  a  clay  house ; 
not  for  cottagers,  but  for  flies ;  and  which,  therefore,  you 
could  readily  enough  have  put  in  your  pocket.  This  fly- 
hospital  had  its  glass  windows,  and  a  red  coat  of  coloring, 
and  very  many  alcoves,  and  three  balconies  ;  balconies,  as 
a  sort  of  house  within  a  house,  he  had  loved  from  of  old 
so  much,  that  he  could  scarcely  have  liked  Jerusalem- 
well,  where  (according  to  Lightfoot)  no  such  thing  is 
permitted  to  be  built.  From  the  glistening  eyes  with 
which  the  architect  had  viewed  his  tenantry  creeping 
about  the  windows,  or  feeding  out  of  the  sugar-trough, 
—  for,  like  the  Count  St.  Germain,  they  ate  nothing 
but  sugar,  —  from  this  joy  an  adept  in  the  art  of  edu- 
cation might  easily  have  prophesied  his  turn  for  house- 
hold contraction ;  to  his  fancy,  in  those  times,  even  gar- 
5* 


I06  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

deners'-hiits  were  like  large  Tvaste  Arks  and  Halls,  and 
notliing  bigger  than  such  a  fly-Louvre  seemed  a  true, 
snug  citizen's-house.  He  now  felt  and  handled  his  old 
high  child's-stool,  which  had  in  former  days  resembled 
the  Sedes  Exploratoria  of  the  Pope ;  he  gave  his  child's- 
coach  a  tug  and  made  it  run  ;  but  he  could  not  under- 
stand what  balsam  and  holiness  so  much  distinguished 
it  from  all  other  child's-coaches.  He  wondered  that  the 
real  sports  of  children  should  not  so  delight  him  as  the 
emblems  of  these  sports,  when  the  child  that  had  carried 
them  on  was  standing  grown  up  to  manhood  in  his  pres- 
ence. 

Before  one  article  in  the  house  he  stood  heart-melted 
and  sad ;  before  a  little  angular  clothes-press,  which  was 
no  higher  than  my  table,  and  which  had  belonged  to  his 
poor  drowned  brother.  TThen  the  boy  with  the  key  of  it 
was  swallowed  by  the  waves,  the  excruciated  mother  had 
made  a  vow  that  this  toy-press  of  his  should  never  be 
broken  up  by  violence.  Most  probably  there  is  nothing 
in  it  but  the  poor  soul's  playthings.  Let  us  look  away 
from  this  bloody  urn.  —     — 

Bacon  reckons  the  remembrances  of  childhood  among 
wholesome,  medicinal  things  ;  naturally  enough,  therefore, 
they  acted  like  a  salutary  digestive  on  the  Quintus.  He 
could  now  again  betake  him  with  new  heart  to  his  desk, 
and  produce  something  quite  peculiar,  —  petitions  for 
church  hvings.  He  took  the  Address-calendar,  and,  for 
every  country  parish  that  he  found  in  it,  got  a  petition 
in  readiness  ;  which  he  then  laid  aside,  till  such  time  as 
the  present  incumbent  should  decease.  For  Hukelum 
alone  he  did  not  solicit.  —  It  is  a  pretty  custom  in  Flach- 
senfingen,  that,  for  every  office  which  is  vacant,  you  arc 
required,  if  you  want  it,  to  sue.     As  the  higher  use  of 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  107 

Prayer  consists,  not  in  its  fulfilment,  but  in  its  accustom- 
ing jou  to  pray ;  so  likewise  petitionary  papers  ought  to 
be  given  in,  not  indeed  that  you  may  get  the  office, — 
this  nothing  but  your  money  can  do,  —  but  that  you  may 
learn  to  write  petitions.  In  truth,  if,  among  the  Calmucks, 
the  turning  of  a  calabash*  stands  in  place  of  Prayer,  a 
slight  movement  of  the  purse  may  be  as  much  as  if  you 
supplicated  in  words. 

Towards  evening  —  it  was  Sunday  —  he  went  out  rov- 
ing over  the  village ;  he  pilgrimed  to  his  old  sporting- 
places,  and  to  the  common  where  he  had  so  often  driven 
his  snails  to  pasture  ;  visited  the  peasant  who,  from  school- 
times  upwards,  had  been  wont,  to  the  amazement  of  the 
rest,  to  thou'\  him;  went,  an  Academic  Tutor,  to  the 
Schoolmaster ;  then  to  the  S,enior ;  then  to  the  Episcopal- 
barn  or  church.  This  last  no  mortal  understands,  till  I 
explain  it.  The  case  was  this.  Some  three-and-forty 
years  ago  a  fire  had  destroyed  the  church  (not  the 
steeple),  the  parsonage,  and,  what  was  not  to  be  re- 
placed, the  church-records.  (For  this "  reason  it  w^as 
only  the  smallest  portion  of  the  Hukelura  people  that 
knew  exactly  how  old  they  were ;   and  the  memory  of 

*  Their  prayer-barrel,  Kiiriidu,  is  a  hollowed  shell,  a  calabash,  full 
of  unrolled  formulas  of  prayer;  they  sway  it  from  side  to  side,  and 
then  it  works.  ^lore  philosophically  viewed,  since  in  prayer  the  feel- 
ing only  is  of  consequence,  it  is  much  the  same  whether  this  express 
itself  by  motion  of  the  mouth  or  of  the  calabash. 

t  In  German,  as  in  some  other  languages,  the  common  mode  of 
address  is  by  the  third  person;  plural,  it  indicates  respect;  singular, 
command;  the  second  person  is  also  used;  plural,  it  generally  denotes 
indifference;  singular,  great  familiarity,  and  sometimes  its  product, 
contempt.  Duizenfreund^  Thouing-friend,  is  the  strictest  term  of  inti- 
macy; and  among  the  wild  Burschen  (Students) many  a  duel  (happily 
however,  often  ending  like  the  Polemo-Middinia  in  one  drop  of  blood) 
has  been  fought,  in  consequence  of  saying  Du  (thou)  and  Sie  (they)  in 
the  wrong  place.  —  Ed. 


Io8  LIFE    OF    QUIXTUS    FIXLEIN. 

our  Quintus  himself  vibrated  between  adopting  the  thirty- 
third  year  and  the  thirty-second.)  In  consequence,  the 
preaching  had  now  to  be  carried  on  where  formerly  there 
had  been  threshing ;  and  the  seed  of  the  divine  word  to 
be  turned  over  on  the  same  threshing-floor  with  natural 
corn-seed.  The  Chanter  and  the  School-boys  took  up  the 
threshing-floor;  the  female  mother-church-people  stood  .on 
the  one  sheaves-loft,  the  Schadeck  womankind  on  the 
other ;  and  their  husbands  clustered  pyramidically,  like 
groschen  and  farthing-gallery  men,  about  the  barn-stairs  ; 
and  far  up  on  the  straw-loft,  mixed  souls  stood  listening. 
A  little  flute  was  their  organ,  an  upturned  beer-cask  their 
altar,  round  which  they  had  to  walk.  I  confess,  I  myself 
could  have  preached  in  such  a  place,  not  without  humor. 
The  Senior  (at  that  time  still  a  Junior),  while  the  par- 
sonage was  building,  dwelt  and  taught  in  the  Castle ;  it 
was  here,  accordingly,  that  Fixlein  had  learned  the  Irreg- 
ular Verbs  with  Thiennette. 

These  voyages  of  discovery  completed,  our  Hukelum 
voyager  could  still,  after  evening  prayers,  pick  leaf-insects, 
with  Thiennette,  from  the  roses  ;  worms  from  the  beds,  and 
a  Heaven  of  joy  from  every  minute.  Every  dew-drop 
was  colored  as  with  oil  of  cloves  and  oil  of  gladness  ;  every 
star  was  a  sparkle  from  the  sun  of  happiness  ;  and  in  the 
closed  heart  of  the  maiden,  there  lay  near  to  him,  behind 
a  little  wall  of  separation,  (as  near  to  the  Eighteous  man 
behind  the  thin  wall  of  Life,)  an  outstretched  blooming 
Paradise.  ...  I  mean,  she  loved  him  a  little. 

He  might  have  known  it,  perhaps.  But  to  his  com- 
pressed delight  he  gave  freer  vent,  as  he  went  to  bed,  by 
eai'ly  recollections  on  the  stair.  For  in  his  childhood  he 
had  been  accustomed,  by  way  of  evening-prayer,  to  go 
over,  under  his  coverlet,  as  it  were,  a  rosary,  including 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  109 

fourteen  Bible  Proverbs,  the  first  verse  of  the  Psalm, 
"  All  people  that  on  Earth,"  the  Tenth  Commandment, 
and,  lastly,  a  long  blessing.  To  get  the  sooner  done  with 
it,  he  had  used  to  begin  his  devotion,  not  only  on  the  stair, 
but  before  leaving  that  place  where  Alexander  studied 
men,  and  Semler  stupid  books.  Moored  in  the  haven  of 
the  down-waves,  he  was  already  over  with  his  evening 
supplication ;    and  could  now,  without  further  exertion, 

shut  his  eyes  and  plump  into  sleep. Thus  does  there 

lurk,  in  the  smallest  homunculus,  the  model  of  —  the 
Catholic  Church. 

So  far  the  Dog-days  of  Quintus  Zebediius  Egidius  Fix- 
lein.  —  I,  for  the  second  time,  close  a  Chapter  of  this  Life, 
as  Life  itself  is  closed,  with  a  sleep 


THIRD    LETTER-BOX. 

Chbistkas  Recoll-ectmn-s.  —  Xevt  OccrEIlESCE. 


''H  ^'.-  'i:^  :-  the  passage  to  the  grave  is,  alas  I  a 
r.pry.  insipid  days,  as  of  glass  pearls, 
ere  divided  bj  an  orient  one 
::  ^ .__.  _.„:  tou  die  murmuring,  unless,  like 
the  Qaintas,  you  regard  your  existence  as  a  drum ;  this 
-  single  tone,  but  variety  of  time  gives  the 
beerfolness  enough.  Our  Quintus  taught  in 
the  Fourth  Class ;  vicariated  in  the  Second ;  wrote  at  his 
desk  bj  night;  and  go  lived  on  the  usual  monotonous 
fashion  —  all  the  time  from  the  Holidays  —  till  Christ- 
inas eve.  17j1  :  and  nothing  was  remarkable  in  his 
his*—  ":■ '.  :Lis  same  eve,  which  I  am  now  about 
to 

E  ;:  I       /:i  stiU  have  time  to  paint  it,  after,  in  the  first 
'  ;^3  shortly  how,  like  birds  of  passage,  he 

-•ar  away  over  the  dim,  cloudy  Harvest, 
r  :  upon  the  Hamburg  Political  Jour- 

,    ,  _      „^     .ikeys  of  Schadeck  had  been  for  pa- 

pering their  buttons.  He  could  now  calmly,  with  his  back 
at  the  stove,  accompany  the  winter  campaigns  of  the  fore- 
going year ;  and  fly  after  every  battle,  as  the  ravens  did 
after  that  of  Pharsalia.  On  the  printed  paper  he  could 
EtQ],  with  joj  and  admiration,  walk  round  our  German 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  Ill 

triumphal  arches  and  scaffoldings  for  fireworks  ;  while  to 
the  people  in  the  town,  who  got  only  the  newest  newspa- 
pers, the  very  fragments  of  these  our  trophies,  maliciously 
torn  down  by  the  French,  were  scarcely  discernible  ;  nay, 
with  old  plans  he  could  drive  back  and  discomfit  the  ene- 
my, while  later  readers  in  vain  tried  to  resist  them  with 
new  ones. 

Moreover,  not  only  did  the  facility  of  conquering  the 
French  prepossess  him  in  favor  of  this  journal ;  but  also 
the  circumstance  that  it  —  cost  him  nothing.  His  attach- 
ment to  gratis  reading  was  decided.  And  does  not  this 
throw  light  on  the  fact  that  he,  as  Morhof  advised,  was 
wont  sedulously  to  collect  the  separate  leaves  of  waste- 
paper  books  as  they  came  from  the  grocer,  and  to  rake 
among  the  same,  as  Virgil  did  in  Ennius  ?  Nay,  for  him 
the  grocer  was  a  Fortius  (the  scholar),  or  a  Frederick 
(the  king),  both  which  persons  were  in  the  habit  of  simply 
cutting  from  complete  books  such  leaves  as  contained  any- 
thing. It  was  also  this  respect  for  all  waste-paper  that 
inspired  him  with  such  esteem  for  the  aprons  of  French 
cooks,  which  it  is  well  known  consist  of  printed  paper ; 
and  he  often  wished  some  German  would  translate  these 
aprons  ;  indeed,  I  am  willing  to  beheve  that  a  good  version 
of  more  than  one  of  such  paper  aprons  might  contribute 
to  elevate  our  Literature  (this  Muse  a  belles  f esses),  and 
serve  her  in  place  of  drivel-bib.  —  On  many  things  a  man 
puts  ixpretium  affecfiojiis,  simplyhecsiuse  he  hopes  he  may 
have  half  stolen  them ;  on  this  principle,  combined  witli 
the  former,  our  Quintus  adopted  into  his  belief  anything 
he  could  snap  away  from  an  open  Lecture,  or  as  a  visitor 
in  class-rooms ;  opinions  only  for  w^hich  the  Professor 
must  be  paid,  he  rigorously  examined.  —  I  return  to  the 
Christmas  eve. 


112  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

At  the  very  first,  Egidius  was  glad,  because  out  of 
doors  millers  and  bakers  were  at  fisticuffs  (as  we  say  of 
drifting  snow  in  large  flakes),  and  the  ice-flowers  of  the 
window  were  blossoming ;  for  external  frost,  with  a  snug 
warm  room,  was  what  he  liked.  He  could  now  put  fir 
wood  into  his  stove,  and  Mocha  coffee  into  his  stomach  ; 
and  shove  his  right  foot  (not  into  the  slipper,  but)  under 
the  warm  side  of  his  Shock,  and  also  on  the  left  keep 
swinging  his  pet  Starling,  which  was  pecking  at  the  snout 
of  old  Schil ;  and  then  with  the  right  hand  —  with  the 
left  he  was  holding  his  pipe  —  proceed,  so  undisturbed, 
so  intrenched,  so  cloud-cap t,  without  the  smallest  breath 
of  frost,  to  the  highest  enterprise  which  a  Quintus  can 
attempt,  —  to  writing  the  Class-prodromus  of  the  Flach- 
senfingen  Gymnasium,  namely,  the  eighth  part  thereof.  I 
hold  the  first  printing  in  the  history  of  a  literary  man  to 
be  more  important  than  the  first  printing  in  the  history 
of  Letters.  Fixlein  could  not  sate  himself  with  specify- 
ing what  he  purposed,  God  willing,  in  the  following  year, 
to  treat  of;  and  accordingly,  more  for  the  sake  of  print- 
ing than  of  use,  he  further  inserted  three  or  four  peda- 
gogic glances  at  the  plan  of  operations  to  be  followed  by 
his  schoolmaster  colleagues  as  a  body. 

He  lastly  introduced  a  few  dashes,  by  way  of  hooking 
his  thoughts  together ;  and  then  laid  aside  the  Opus,  and 
would  no  longer  look  at  it,  that  so,  when  printed,  he  might 
stand  astonished  at  his  own  thoughts.  And  now  he  could 
take  the  Leipzig  Fair  Catalogue,  which  he  purchased 
yearly,  instead  of  the  books  therein,  and  open  it  without  a 
sigh ;  he  too  was  in  print,  as  well  as  I  am. 

The  happy  fool,  while  writing,  had  shaken  his  head, 
rubbed  his  hands,  hitched  about  on  his  chair,  puckered  his 
face,  and  sucked  the  end  of  his  cue.  —  He  could  now 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  II3 

Spring  up  about  five  o'clock  in  the  evening  to  recreate 
himself;  and  across  the  magic  vapor  of  his  pipe,  like  a 
new-caught  bird,  move  up  and  down  in  his  cage.  On  the 
warm  smoke  the  long  galaxy  of  street-lamps  was  gleam- 
ing ;  and  red  on  his  bed-curtains  lay  the  fitful  reflection 
of  the  blazing  windows  and  illuminated  trees  in  the  neigh- 
borhood. And  now  he  shook  away  the  snow  of  Time 
from  the  winter-green  of  Memory  ;  and  beheld  the  fair 
years  of  his  childhood,  uncovered,  fresh,  green,  and  balmy, 
standing  afar  off  before  him.  From  his  distance  of  twen- 
ty years,  he  looked  into  the  quiet  cottage  of  his  parents, 
where  his  father  and  his  brother  had  not  yet  been  reaped 
away  by  the  sickle  of  Death.  He  said  to  himself:  "I 
will  go  through  the  whole  Christmas  eve,  from  the  very 
dawn,  as  I  had  it  of  old." 

At  his  very  rising  he  finds  spangles  on  the  table ;  sacred 
spangles  from  the  gold-leaf  and  silver-leaf  with  which  the 
Christ-child  *  has  been  emblazoning  and  coating  his  ap- 
ples and  nuts,  the  presents  of  the  night.  —  On  the  mint- 
balance  of  joy,  this  metallic  foam  pulls  heavier  than  the 
golden  cars,  and  golden  Pythagoras-legs,  and  golden 
Philistine-mice  of  wealthier  capitalists.  —  Then  came  his 
mother,  bringing  him  both  Christianity  and  clothes ;  for 
in  drawing  on  his  trousers,  she  easily  recapitulated  the 
Ten  Commandments,  and  in  tying  his  garters,  the  Apos- 
tles' Creed.  So  soon  as  candle-light  was  over,  and  day- 
light come,  he  clambers  to  the  arm  of  the  settle,  and  then 

*  These  antique  Christmas  festivities  Eichter  describes  with  equal 
gusto  in  another  work  {Brief e  und  ZuMnftige  Lebenskmf)  j  where  the 
Christ-child  (falsely  reported  to  the  young  ones  to  have  been  seen  fly- 
ing through  the  air,  with  gold  wings);  the  Birch-bough  fixed  in  a  cor- 
ner of  the  room,  and  by  him  made  to  grow ;  the  fruit  of  gilt  sweet- 
meats, apples,  nuts,  which  (for  good  boys)  it  suddenly  produces,  &c., 
&c.,  are  specified  with  the  same  fidelity  as  here.  —  Ed. 


114  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

measures  the  nocturnal  growth  of  the  yellow  wiry  grove 
of  Christmas-Birch ;  and  devotes  far  less  attention  than 
usual  to  the  little  white  winter-flowerage,  which  the  seeds 
shaken  from  the  bird-cage  are  sending  forth  in  the  wet 
joints  of  the  window-panes.  —  I  nowise  grudge  J.  J. 
Rousseau  his  Flora  Petrinsularis  ;  *  but  let  him  also  al- 
low our  Quintus  his  Windoic-Jlora.  —  There  was  no  such 
thing  as  school  all  day ;  so  he  had  time  enough  to  seek 
his  Flescher  (his  brother),  and  commence  (when  could 
there  be  finer  frost  for  it  ?)  the  slaughtering  of  their  win- 
ter-meat. Some  days  before,  the  brother,  at  the  peril  of 
his  life  and  of  a  cudgelling,  had  caught  their  stalled-beast 
—  so  they  called  the  sparrow  —  under  a  window-sill  in 
the  Castle.  Their  slaughtering  wants  not  an  axe  (of 
wood),  nor  puddings,  nor  potted  meat-  —  About  three 
o'clock  the  old  Gardener,  whom  neighbors  must  call  the 
Professor  of  Gardening,  takes  his  place  on  his  large  chair, 
with  his  Cologne  tobacco-pipe ;  and  after  this  no  mortal 
shall  work  a  stroke.  He  tells  nothing  but  lies  ;  of  the 
aeronautic  Christ-child,  and  the  jingling  Ruprecht  with 
his  bells.  In  the  dusk,  our  little  Quintus  takes  an  apple  ; 
divides  it  into  all  the  figures  of  stereometry,  and  spreads  the 
fragments  in  two  heaps  on  the  table  ;  then  as  the  lighted 
candle  enters,  he  starts  up  in  amazement  at  the  unexpect- 
ed present,  and  says  to  his  brother,  "  Look  what  the  good 
Christ-child  has  given  thee  and  me ;  and  I  saw  one  of  his 
wings  glittering."  And  for  this  same  gUttering  he  himself 
lies  in  wait  'the  whole  evening. 

About  eight  o'clock  —  here  he  walks  chiefly  by  the 
chronicle  of  his  letter-drawer  —  both  of  them,  with  necks 
almost  excoriated  with  washing,  and  in  clean  linen,  and  in 

*  Which  lie  purposed  to  make  for  his  Island  of  St.  Pierre  in  the 
Bienne  Lake. 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  II5 

universal  anxiety  lest  the  Holy  Christ-child  find  them  up, 
are  put  to  bed.  What  a  magic  night !  What  tumult  of 
dreaming  hopes  !  —  The  populous,  motley,  ghttering  cave 
of  Fancy  opens  itself,  in  the  length  of  the  night,  and  in 
the  exhaustion  of  dreamy  effort,  still  darker  and  darker, 
fuller  and  more  grotesque  ;  but  the  awakening  gives  back 
to  the  thirsty  heart  its  hopes.  All  accidental  tones,  the 
cries  of  animals,  of  watchmen,  are,  for  the  timidly  devout 
Fancy,  sounds  out  of  Heaven  ;  singing  voices  of  Angels 
in  the  air,  church-music  of  the  morning  worship.  — 

Ah  !  it  was  not  the  mere  Lubberland  of  sweetmeats 
and  playthings,  which  then,  with  its  perspective,  stormed 
like  a  river  of  joy  against  the  chambers  of  our  hearts ; 
and  which  yet  in  the  moonlight  of  memory,  with  its  dusky 
landscapes,  melts  our  souls  in  sweetness.  Ah  !  this  was 
it,  that  then  for  our  boundless  wishes  there  were  still 
boundless  hopes  ;  but  now  reality  is  round  us,  and  the 
wishes  are  all  that  we  have  left ! 

At  last  came  rapid  lights  from  the  neighborhood  play- 
ing through  the  window  on  the  walls,  and  the  Christmas 
trumpets,  and  the  crowing  from  the  steeple,  hurries  both 
the  boys  from  their  bed.  With  their  clothes  in  their 
hands,  without  fear  for  the  darkness,  without  feeling  for 
the  morning-frost,  rushing,  intoxicated,  shouting,  they  hur- 
ry down-stairs  into  the  dark  room.  Fancy  riots  in  the 
pastry  and  fruit  perfume  of  the  still  echpsed  treasures, 
and  paints  her  air-castles  by  the  glimmering  of  the  Hes- 
perides-fruit  with  which  the  Birch-tree  is  loaded.  While 
their  mother  strikes  a  light,  the  falling  sparks  sportfully 
open  and  shroud  the  dainties  on  the  table,  and  the  many- 
colored  grove  on  the  wall ;  and  a  single  atom  of  that  fire 
bears  on  it  a  hanging  garden  of  Eden.  —     —     — 

—  On  a  sudden  all  grew  hght ;  and  the  Quintus  got  — 
the  Conrectorship,  and  a  table-clock. 


FOURTH    LETTER-BOX. 


Office-Bp.ok_\ge.  —  Discovery  of  the  promised  Secret. 

vox  FUCHSLZI>'. 


Han's 


OR  while  the  Quintus,  in  his  vapory  chamber 
was  thus  running  over  the  sounding-board  of 
his  earl  J  years,  the  Rathsdiener,  or  City-officer, 
entered  with  a  lantern  and  the  Presentation; 
and  behind  him  the  courier  of  the  Frau  von  Aufhammer 
with  a  note  and  a  table-clock.  The  Rittmeisterinn  had 
transformed  her  payment  for  the  Dog-days  sick-bed  exhor- 
tation into  a  Christmas  present ;  which  consisted,  Jirst,  of 
a  table-clock,  with  a  wooden  ape  thereon,  starting  out 
when  the  hour  struck,  and  drumming  along  with  every 
stroke  ;  secondly/,  of  the  Conrectorate,  which  she  had  pro- 
cured for  him. 

As  in  the  public  this  appointment  from  the  private 
Flachsenfingen  Council  has  not  been  judged  of  as  it  de- 
served, I  consider  it  my  duty  to  offer  a  defence  for  the 
body  corporate  ;  and  that  rather  here  than  in  the  Reich- 
sanzeiyer,  or  Imperial  Indicator.  —  I  have  already  men- 
tioned, in  the  Second  Letter-Box,  that  the  To-vvn-Syndic 
drove  a  trade  in  Hamburg  candles ;  and  the  then  Burger- 
meister  in  coffee-beans,  which  he  sold  as  well  whole  as 
ground.  Their  joint  traffic,  however,  which  they  carried 
on  exclusively,  was  in  the  eight  School-offices  of  Flach- 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  117 

seniingen ;  the  other  members  of  the  Council  acting  only 
as  bale-wrappers,  shopmen,  and  accountants  in  the  Coun- 
cil wareroom.  A  Council-house,  indeed,  is  like  an  India- 
house,  where  not  only  resolutions  or  appointments,  but 
also  shoes  and  cloth,  are  exposed  to  sale.  Properly 
speaking,  the  Councillor  derives  his  freedom  of  office-trad- 
ing from  that  principle  of  the  "Roman  law,  Cui  jus  est 
donandi,  eidem  et  vendendi  jus  est ;  that  is  to  say.  He 
who  has  the  right  of  giving  anything  away  has  also  a  right 
to  dispose  of  it  for  money,  if  he  can.  Now  as  the  Coun- 
cil-members have  palpably  the  right  of  confemng  offices 
gratis,  the  right  of  selhng  them  must  follow  of  course. 

Short  Extra-word  on  Appointment-brohers  in  general. 

My  chief  anxiety  is  lest  the  Academy-product-sale- 
Commission  *  of  the  State  carry  on  its  office-trade  too 
slackly.  And  what  but  the  commonweal  must  suffer  in 
the  long  run,  if  important  posts  are  distributed,  not  ac- 
cording to  the  current  cash  which  is  laid  down  for  them, 
but  according  to  connections,  relationships,  party  recom- 
mendations, and  bowings  and  cringings  ?  Is  it  not  a  con- 
tradiction, to  charge  titulary  offices  dearer  than  real  ones  ? 
Should  one  not  rather  expect  that  the  real  Hofrath 
would  pay  higher  by  the  alterum  tantum  than  the  mere 
titulary  Hofrath  ? . —  Money,  among  European  nations,  is 
now  the  equivalent  and  representative  of  value  in  ail 
things,  and  consequently  in  understanding  ;  the  rather  as 
a  head  is  stamped  on  it ;  to  pay  down  the  purchase-money 
of  an  office  is  therefore  neither  more  nor  less  than  to  stand 
an  examen  rigorosum,  which  is  held  by  a  good  schema 

*  Borrowed  from  the  "  Imperial  Mine-product-sale-Commission," 
in  Vienna.    In  their  very  names  these  Vienna  people  show  taste. 


Il8  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

examinandi.  To  invert  tins,  to  pretend  exhibiting  your 
qualifications,  in  place  of  these  their  surrogates,  and  as- 
signates,  and  monnoie  de  conjiance,  is  simply  to  resemble 
the  crazy  philosophers  in  Gulliver's  Travels,  who,  for 
social  converse,  instead  of  names  of  things,  brought  the 
things  themselves  tied  up  in  a  bag ;  it  is,  indeed,  plainly 
as  much  as  trying  to  fall  back  into  the  barbarous  times 
of  trade  by  barter,  when  the  Romans,  instead  of  the  fig- 
ured cattle  on  their  leather  money,  drove  forth  the  beeves 
themselves. 

From  all  such  injudicious  notions  I  myself  am  so  far 
removed,  that  often,  when  I  used  to  read  that  the  King  of 
France  was  devising  new  offices,  to  stand  and  sell  them 
under  the  booth  of  his  Baldaquin,  I  have  set  myself  to  do 
something  of  the  like.  This  I  shall  now  at  least  calmly 
propose ;  not  vexing  my  heart  whether  Governments 
choose  to  adopt  it  or  not.  As  our  Sovereign  will  not 
allow  us  to  multiply  offices  purely  for  sale,  nay,  on  the 
contrary,  is  day  and  night  (like  managers  of  strolling  com- 
panies) meditating  how  to  give  more  parts  to  one  State- 
actor  ;  and  thus  to  the  Three  Stage  Unities  to  add  a 
Fourth,  that  of  Players  ;  as  the  above  French  method, 
therefore,  will  not  apply,  could  we  not  at  least  contrive  to 
invent  some  Virtues  harmonizing  with  the  offices,  along 
with  which  they  might  be  sold  as  titles  ?  Might  we  not, 
for  instance,  with  the  office  of  a  Referendary,  put  off  at 
the  same  time  a  titular  Incorruptibility,  for  a  fair  consid- 
eration ;  and  so  that  this  virtue,  as  not  belonging  to  the 
office,  must  be  separately  paid  for  by  the  candidate  ? 
Such  a  market-title  and  patent  of  nobility  could  not  but 
be  ornamental  to  a  Referendary.  We  forget  that  in  for- 
mer times  such  high  titles  were  appended  to  all  posts 
whatsoever.    The  scholastic  Professor  then  wrote  himself 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  119 

(besides  his  official  designation)  "  The  Seraphic,"  "  The 
Incontrovertible,"  "  The  Penetrating  "  ;  the  King  wrote 
himself,  "  The  Great,"  "  The  Bald,"  "  The  Bold,"  and  so 
also  did  the  Rabbins.  Could  it  be  unpleasant  to  gentle- 
men in  the  higher  stations  of  Justice,  if  the  titles  of  Im- 
partiality, Rapidity,  &c.,  might  be  conferred  on  them  by 
sale,  as  well  as  the  posts  themselves  ?  Thus  with  the  ap- 
pointment of  a  Kammerrath,  or  Councillor  of  Revenue, 
the  virtue  of  Patriotism  might  fitly  be  conjoined  ;  and  I 
believe  few  Advocates  would  grudge  purchasing  the  title 
of  Integrity  (as  well  as  their  common  one  of  Government- 
advocacy),  were  it  to  be  had  in  the  market.  If,  however, 
any  candidate  chose  to  take  his  post  without  the  virtues, 
then  it  would  stand  with  himself  to  do  so,  and  in  the  adop- 
tion of  this  reflex  morality  Government  should  not  con- 
strain him. 

It  might  be  that,  as,  according  to  Tristram  Shandy, 
clothes,  according  to  Walter  Shandy  and  Lavater,  proper 
names,  exert  an  influence  on  men,  appellatives  would  do 
so  still  more  ;  since,  on  us,  as  on  testaceous  animals,  the 
foam  so  often  hardens  into  shell ;  but  such  internal  moral- 
ity is  not  a  thing  the  State  can  have  an  eye  to  ;  for,  as  in 
the  fine  arts,  it  is  not  this,  but  the  representation  of  it, 
which  forms  her  true  aim. 

I  have  found  it  rather  difficult  to  devise  for  our  different 
offices  different  verbal-virtues  ;  but  I  should  think  there 
might  many  such  divisions  of  Virtue  (at  this  moment, 
Love  of  Freedom,  Public-spirit,  Sincerity,  and  Upright- 
ness occur  to  me)  be  hunted  out ;  were  but  some  well- 
disposed  minister  of  state  to  appoint  a  Virtue-board  or 
Moral  Address  Department,  with  some  half-dozen  secre- 
taries, who,  for  a  small  salary,  might  devise  various  vir- 
tues for  the  various  posts.     Were   I   in    their   place,   I 


120  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

should  hold  a  good  prism  before  the  white  ray  of  Virtue, 
and  divide  it  completely.  Pity  that  it  were  not  crimes 
we  wanted  —  their  subdivision  I  mean  ;  —  our  country 
Judges  might  then  be  selected  for  this  purpose.  For  in 
their  tribunals,  where  only  inferior  jurisdiction,  and  no 
penalty  above  five  florins  Frankish,  is  admitted,  they  have 
a  daily  training  how  out  of  every  mischief  to  make  several 
small  ones,  none  of  which  they  ever  punish  to  a  greater 
amount  than  their  five  florins.  This  is  a  precious  moral 
Rolfinhenism,  which  our  Jurists  have  learned  from  the 
great  Sin-cutters,  St.  Augustin  and  his  Sorbonne,  who 
together  have  carved  more  sins  on  Adam's  Sin-apple  than 
ever  Rolfinken  did  faces  on  a  cherry-stone.  How  different 
one  of  our  Judges  from  a  Papal  Casuist,  who,  by  side- 
scrapings,  will  rasp  you  down  the  best  deadly  sin  into  a 
venial !  — 

School-offices  (to  come  to  these)  are  a  small  branch  of 
traffic  certainly  ;  yet  still  they  are  monarchies,  —  school- 
monarchies,  to  wit,  —  resembling  the  Polish  crown,  which, 
according  to  Pope's  verse,  is  twice  exposed  to  sale  in  the 
century  ;  a  statement,  I  need  hardly  say,  arithmetically 
false,  Newton  having  settled  the  average  duration  of  a 
reign  at  twenty-two  years.  For  the  rest,  whether  the 
city  Council  bring  the  young  of  the  community  a  Hamel's 
jRa^and-Child-ca^cAer ;  or  a  Weissen's  Child' s-friend, — 
this  to  the  Council  can  make  no  difference  ;  seeing  the 
Schoolmaster  is  not  a  horse,  for  whose  secret  defects  the 
horse-dealer  is  to  be  responsible.  It  is  enough  if  Town- 
Syndic  and  Co.  cannot  reproach  themselves  with  having 
picked  out  any  fellow  of  genius  ;  for  a  genius,  as  he  is 
useless  to  the  State,  except  for  recreation  and  ornament, 
would  at  the  very  least  exclude  the  duller,  cooler  head, 
who  properly  forms  the  true  care  and  profit  of  the  State ; 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  121 

as  your  costly  carat-pearl  is  good  for  show  alone,  but 
coarse  grain-pearls  for  medicine.  On  the  whole,  if  a 
schoolmaster  be  adequate  to  flog  his  scholars,  it  should 
sufl&ce ;  and  I  cannot  but  blame  our  Commission  of  In- 
spectors, when  they  go  examining  schools,  that  they  do 
not  make  -the  schoolmaster  go  through  the  duty  of  firking 
one  or  two  young  persons  of  his  class  in  their  presence, 
by  way  of  trial,  to  see  what  is  in  him. 

End  of  the  Extra-word  on  Appointment-broJceis  in  general. 

Now  again  to  our  history  !  The  Councillor  Heads  of 
the  Firm  had  conferred  the  Conrectorate  on  my  hero,  not 
only  with  a  view  to  the  continued  consumpt  of  candles 
and  beans,  but  also  on  the  strength  of  a  quite  mad  notion : 
they  believed  the  Quintus  would  very  soon  die. 

—  And  here  I  have  reached  a  most  important  circum- 
stance in  this  History,  and  one  into  which  I  have  yet  let 
no  mortal  look  ;  now,  however,  it  no  longer  depends  on 
my  will  whether  I  shall  shove  aside  the  folding-screen 
from  it  or  not ;  but  I  must  positively  lay  it  open,  nay, 
hang  a  reverberating-lamp  over  it. 

In  medical  history,  it  is  a  well-known  fact,  that  in  cer- 
tain families  the  people  all  die  precisely  at  the  same  age, 
just  as  in  these  families  they  are  all  born  at  the  same  age 
(of  nine  months)  ;  nay,  from  Voltaire,  I  recollect  one 
family,  the  members  of  which  at  the  same  age  all  killed 
themselves.  Now,  in  the  Fixleinic  lineage,  it  was  the 
custom  that  the  male  ascendants  uniformly  on  Cantata- 
Sunday,  in  their  thirty-second  year,  took  to  bed  and  died ; 
every  one  of  my  readers  would  do  well  to  insert  in  hi? 
copy  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  Schiller  having  entirely 
omitted  it,  the  fact,  that,  in  the  course  thereof,  one  Fixlein 
6 


122  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

died  of  the  plague,  another  of  hunger,  another  of  a  musket- 
bullet  ;  all  in  their  thirty- second  year.  True  Philosophy 
explains  the  matter  thus  :  "  The  first  two  or  three  times, 
it  happened  purely  by  accident ;  and  the  other  times,  the 
people  died  of  sheer  fright :  if  not  so,  the  whole  fact  is 
rather  to  be  questioned." 

But  what  did  Fixlein  make  of  the  affair  ?  Little  or 
nothing ;  the  only  thing  he  did  was,  that  he  took  little  or 
no  pains  to  fall  in  love  with  Thiennette  ;  that  so  no  other 
might  have  cause  for  fear  on  his  account.  He  himself, 
however,  for  five  reasons,  minded  it  so  little,  that  he  hoped 
to  be  older  than  Senior  Astmann  before  he  died.  First, 
because  three  Gypsies,  in  three  different  places,  and  at 
three  different  times,  had  each  shown  him  the  same  long 
vista  of  years  in  her  magic  mirror.  Secondly,  because  he 
had  a  sound  constitution.  Thirdly,  because  his  own 
brother  had  formed  an  exception,  and  perished  before  the 
thirties.  Fourthly,  on  this  ground  :  When  a  boy  he  had 
fallen  sick  of  sorrow,  on  the  very  Cantata- Sun  day  when 
his  father  was  lying  in  the  winding-sheet,  and  only  been 
saved  from  death  by  his  playthings  ;  and  with  this  Cantata- 
sickness,  he  conceived  that  he  had  given  the  murderous 
Genius  of  his  race  the  slip.  Fifthly,  the  church-books 
being  destroyed,  and  with  them  the  certainty  of  his  age, 
he  could  never  fall  into  a  right  definite  deadly  fear  :  "  It 
may  be,"  said  he,  "  that  I  have  got  whisked  away  over 
this  whoreson  year,  and  no  one  the  wiser."  I  will  not 
deny  that  last  year  he  had  fancied  he  was  two-and-thirty ; 
'•  however,"  said  he,  "  if  I  am  not  to  be  so  till,  God  will- 
ing, the  next  (1792),  it  may  run  away  as  smoothly  as  the 
last ;  am  I  not  always  in  His  keeping  ?  And  M^ere  it  un- 
just if  the  pretty  years  that  were  broken  off  from  the  life 
of  my  brother  should  be  added  to  mine  ? "    Thus,  under 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  I23 

the  cold  snow  of  the  Present,  does  poor  man  strive  to 
warm  himself,  or  to  mould  out  of  it  a  fair  snow-man. 

The  Councillor  Oligarchy,  however,  built  upon  the  op- 
posite opinion  ;  and,  like  a  Divinity,  elevated  our  Quintus 
all  at  once  from  the  Quintusship  to  the  Conrectorate  ; 
swearing  to  themselves  that  he  would  soon  vacate  it  again. 
Properly  speaking,  by  school-seniority,  this  holy  chair 
should  have  belonged  to  the  Subrector  Hans  von  Fiichs- 
lein  ;  but  he  wished  it  not ;  being  minded  to  become 
Hukelum  Parson  ;  especially,  as  Astmann's  Death-angel, 
according  to  sure  intelligence,  was  opening  more  and 
more  widely  the  door  of  this  spiritual  sheepfold.  "  If  the 
fellow  weather  another  year,  't  is  more  than  I  expect," 
said  Hans. 

This  Hans  was  such  a  churl,  that  it  is  pity  he  had  not 
been  a  Hanoverian  Post-boy;  that  so,  by  the  Mandate 
of  the  Hanoverian  Government,  enjoining  on  all  its  Post- 
officers  an  elegant  style  of  manners,  he  might  have  some- 
what refined  himself.  To  our  poor  Quintus,  whom  no 
mortal  disliked,  and  who  again  could  hate  no  mortal,  he 
alone  bore  a  grudge ;  simply  because  Fixlein  did  not 
write  himself  Fuchslein,  and  had  not  chosen  along  with 
him  to  purchase  a  Patent  of  Nobility.  The  Subrector,  on 
this  his  Patent  triumphal  chariot,  drawn  by  a  team  of  four 
specified  ancestors,  was  obliged  to  see  the  Quintus,  who 
was  related  to  him,  clutching  by  the  lackey-straps  behind 
the  carriage ;  and  to  hear  him,  in  the  most  despicable 
raiment,  saying  to  the  train  :  "  He  that  rides  there  is  my 
cousin,  and  a  mortal,  and  I  always  remind  him  of  it." 
The  mild,  compliant  Quintus  never  noticed  this  large 
wasp-poison-bag  in  the  Subrector,  but  took  it  for  a 
honey-bag;  nay,  by  his  brotherly  warmness,  which  the 
nobleman   regarded   as  mere  show,  he  concreted  these 


124  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

venomous  juices  into  still  feller  consistency.  The  Quin- 
tus,  in  his  simplicity,  took  Fuchslein's  contempt  for  envy 
of  his  pedagogic  talents. 

A  Catherinenhof,  an  Annenhof,  an  Elizabethhof,  Stra- 
lenhof,  and  Petershof,  all  these  Russian  pleasure  palaces, 
a  man  can  dispense  with  (if  not  despise),  who  has  a  room, 
in  which  on  Christmas  eve  he  walks  about  with  a  Pre- 
sentation in  his  hand.  The  new  Conrector  now  longed 
for  nothing  but  —  daylight ;  joys  always  (cares  never) 
nibbled  from  him,  like  sparrows,  his  sleep-grains  ;  and 
to-night,  moreover,  the  registrator  of  his  glad  time,  the 
clock-ape,  drummed  out  every  hour  to  him,  which,  ac- 
cordingly, he  spent  in  gay  dreaming,  rather  than  in 
sound  snoring. 

On  Christmas  morn  he  looked  at  his  Class-prodromus, 
and  thought  but  little  of  it ;  he  scarcely  knew  what  to 
make  of  his  last  night's  foolish  inflation  about  his  Quin- 
tusship.  "  The  Quintus-post,"  said  he  to  himself,  "  is  not 
to  be  named  in  the  same  day  with  the  Conrectorate ;  I 
wonder  how  I  could  parade  so  last  night  before  my  pro- 
motion ;  at  present,  I  had  more  reason."  To-day  he  eat, 
as  on  all  Sundays  and  holidays,  with  the  Master-Butcher 
Steinberger,  his  former  Guardian.  To  this  man  Fixlein 
was,  what  common  people  are  always,  but  polished,  philo- 
sophical, and  sentimental  people  very  seldom  are,  —  thank- 
ful; a  man  thanks  you  the  less  for  presents,  the  more 
inclined  he  is  to  give  presents  of  his  own ;  and  the  benefi- 
cent is  rarely  a  grateful  person.  Meister  Steinberger,  in 
the  character  of  storemaster,  had  introduced  into  the  wire- 
cage  of  a  garret,  where  Fixlein,  while  a  Student  at  Leip- 
zig, was  suspended,  many  a  well-filled  trough  with  good 
canary-meat,  of  hung-beef,  of  household  bread,  and  Sauer- 
kraut.    Money  indeed  was  never  to  be  wrung  from  him ; 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  125 

it  is  well  known  that  he  often  sent  the  best  calf-skins  gratis 
to  the  tanner,  to  be  boots  for  our  Quintus ;  but  the  tan- 
nin;?-charn^es  the  Ward  himself  had  to  bear.  —  On  Fix- 
lein's  entrance,  as  was  at  all  times  customary,  a  smaller 
damask  table-cloth  was  laid  upon  the  large  coarser  one ; 
the  arm-chair,  silver  implements,  and  a  wine-soup  were 
handed  him  ;  mere  waste,  which,  as  the  Guardian  used 
to  say,  suited  well  enough  for  a  Scholar  ;  but  for  a 
Flescher  not  at  all.  Fixlein  first  took  his  victuals,  and 
then  signified  that  he  was  made  Conrector.  "  Ward," 
said  Steinberger,  "  if  you  are  made  that,  it  is  well.  — 
Seest  thou,  Eva,  I  cannot  buy  a  tail  of  thy  cows  now ; 
I  must  have  smelt  it  beforehand."  He  was  hereby  in- 
forming his  daughter  that  the  cash  set  apart  for  the  fatted 
cattle  must  now  be  applied  to  the  Conrectorate ;  for  he 
was  in  the  habit  of  advancing  all  instalment-dues  to  his 
Ward,  at  an  interest  of  four  and  a  half  per  cent.  Fifty 
gulden  he  had  already  lent  the  Quintus  on  his  advance- 
ment to  the  Quintusship ;  of  these  the  interest  had  to  be 
duly  paid ;  yet,  on  the  day  of  payment,  the  Quintus  al- 
ways got  some  abatement ;  being  wont  every  Sunday 
after  dinner  to  instruct  his  guardian's  daughter  in  arith- 
metic, writing,  and  geography.  Steinberger  with  justice 
required  of  his  own  grown-up  daughter  that  she  should 
know  all  the  towns  where  he  in  his  wanderings  as  a 
journeyman  had  slain  fat  oxen ;  and  if  she  slipped,  or 
wrote  crookedly,  or  subtracted  wrong,  he  himself,  as 
Academical  Senate  and  Justiciary,  was  standing  behind 
her  chair,  ready,  so  to  speak,  with  the  forge-hammer 
of  his  fist  to  beat  out  the  dross  from  her  brain,  and  at 
a  few  strokes  hammer  it  into  right  ductility.  The  soft 
Quintus,  for  his  part,  had  never  struck  her.  On  this 
account  she  had  perhaps,  with  a  few  glances,  appointed 


126  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

him  executor  and  assignee  of  her  heart.    The  old  Flescher 

—  simply  because  his  wife  was  dead  —  had  constantly 
been  in  the  habit  of  searching  with  mine-lamps  and  pokers 
into  all  the  corners  of  Eva's  heart ;  and  had  in  conse- 
quence long  ago  observed  —  what  the  Quintus  never  did 

—  that  she  had  a  mind  for  the  said  Quintus.  Young 
women  conceal  their  sorrows  more  easily  than  their  joys ; 
to-day,  at  the  mention  of  this  Conrectorate,  Eva  had  be- 
come unusually  red.  , 

When  she  went  after  breakfast  to  bring  in  coffee,  which 
the  Ward  had  to  drink  down  to  the  grounds  :  "  I  beat  Eva 
to  death  if  she  but  look  at  him,"  said  he.  Then  addressing 
Fixlein  :  "  Hear  you.  Ward,  did  you  never  cast  an  eye  on 
my  Eva  ?  She  can  suffer  you,  and  if  you  want  her,  you 
get  her  ;  but  ive  have  done  with  one  another ;  for  a  learned 
man  needs  quite  another  sort  of  thing." 

"  Herr  Regiments-Quartermaster,"  said  Fixlein,  (for 
this  post  Steinberger  filled  in  the  Provincial  Militia,) 
"  such  a  match  were  far  too  rich,  at  any  rate,  for  a 
Schoohnan."  The  Quartermaster  nodded  fifty  times ; 
and  then  said  to  Eva,  as  she  returned,  —  at  the  same 
time  taking  down  from  the  shelf  a  wooden  crook,  on 
which  he  used  to  rack  out  and  suspend  his  slain  calves : 
"  Stop  !  —  Hark,  dost  wish  the  present  Herr  Conrector 
here  for  thy  husband  ?  " 

"  Ah,  good  Heaven  ! "  said  Eva. 

"  Mayst  wish  him  or  not,"  continued  the  Flescher ; 
"  with  this  crook  thy  father  knocks  thy  brains  out,  if 
thou  but  think  of  a  learned  man.  Now  make  his  cof- 
fee." And  so  by  the  dissevering  stroke  of  this  wooden 
crook  was  a  love  easily  smitten  asunder,  which  in  a 
higher  rank,  by  such  cutting  through  it  with  the  sword, 
would  only  have  foamed  and  hissed  the  keenlier. 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  1 27 

Fixlein  might  now,  at  any  hour  he  liked,  lay  hold  of 
fifty  florins  Frankish,  and  clutch  the  pedagogic  sceptre, 
and  become  coadjutor  of  the  Rector,  that  is,  Conrector. 
We  may  assert,  that  it  is  with  debts,  as  with  proportions 
in  Architecture  ;  of  which  Wolf  has  shown  that  those  are 
the  best  which  can  be  expressed  in  the  smallest  numbers. 
Nevertheless,  the  Quartermaster  cheerfully  took  learned 
men  under  his  arm  ;  for  the  notion  that  his  debtor  would 
decease  in  his  thirty-second  year,  and  that  so  Death,  as 
creditor  in  the  first  rank,  must  be  paid  his  Debt  of  Nature, 
before  the  other  creditors  could  come  fiDrward  with  their 
debts  —  this  notion  he  named  stuff  and  old-wifery ;  he 
was  neither  Superstitious  nor  Fanatical,  and  he  walked 
by  firm  principles  of  action,  such  as  the  common  man 
much  oftener  has  than  your  vaporing  man  of  letters,  or 
your  empty,  dainty  man  of  rank. 

As  it  is  but  a  few  clear  Ladydays,  warm  Mayday-nights, 
at  the  most  a  few  odorous  Rose-weeks,  which  I  am  dig- 
ging from  this  Fixleinic  Life,  embedded  in  the  dross  of 
week-day  cares  ;  and  as  if  they  were  so  many  veins  of 
silver,  am  separating,  stamping,  smelting,  and  burnishing 
for  the  reader,  —  I  must  now  travel  on  with  the  stream, 
his  history  to  Cantata-Sunday,  1792,  before  I  can  gather 
a  few  handfuls  of  this  gold-dust,  to  carry  in  and  wash  in 
my  biographical  gold-hut.  That  Sunday,  on  the  contrary, 
is  very  metalliferous  ;  do  but  consider  that  Fixlein  is  yet 
uncertain  (the  ashes  of  the  Church-books  not  being  legi- 
ble) whether  it  is  conducting  him  into  his  thirty-second  or 
his  thirty-third  year. 

From  Christmas  till  then  he  did  nothing,  but  simply 
became  Conrector.  The  new  chair  of  office  was  a  Sun- 
altar,  on  which,  from  his  Quintus-ashes,  a  young  Phoenix 
combined   itself  together.      Great  changes  —  in  offices, 


128 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 


marriages,  travels  —  make  us  younger ;  we  always  date 
our  history  from  the  last  revolution,  as  the  French  have 
done  from  theirs.  A  colonel,  who  first  set  foot  on  the 
ladder  of  seniority  as  corporal,  is  five  times  younger  than 
a  king,  who  in  his  whole  life  has  never  been  aught  else 
except  a  —  crown-prince. 


FIFTH    LETTER-BOX. 


Cantata-Sunday.  —  Two  Testaments.  —  Pontac;  Blood;  Love. 


HE  spring  months  clothe  the  earth  in  new 
variegated  hues ;  but  man  they  usually  dress 
in  black.  Just  when  our  icy  regions  are  be- 
coming fruitful,  and  the  flower-waves  of  the 
meadows  are  rolling  together  over  our  quarter  of  the 
globe,  we  on  all  hands  meet  with  men  in  sables,  the  begin- 
ning of  whose  Spring  is  full  of  tears.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  this  very  upblooming  of  the  renovated  earth  is 
itself  the  best  balm  for  sorrow  over  those  who  lie  under 
it ;  and  graves  are  better  hid  by  blossoms  than  by  snow. 
In  April,  which  is  no  less  deadly  than  it  is  fickle,  old 
Senior  Astmann,  our  Conrector's  teacher,  was  overtaken 
by  death.  His  departure  it  was  meant  to  hide  from  the 
Rittmeisterinn  ;  but  the  unusual  ringing  of  funeral  peals 
carried  his  swan-song  to  her  heart ;  and  gradually  set  the 
curfew-bell  of  her  life  into  similar  movement.  Age  and 
sufferings  had  already  marked  out  the  first  incisions  for 
Death,  so  that  he  required  but  little  effort  to  cut  her  down ; 
for  it  is  with  men  as  with  trees,  they  are  notched  long  be- 
fore felling,  that  their  life-sap  may  exude.  The  second 
stroke  of  apoplexy  was  soon  followed  by  the  last ;  it  is 
strange  that  Death,  like  criminal  courts,  cites  the  apoplec- 
tic thrice. 

6*  I 


130  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

Men  are  apt  to  postpone  their  last  will  as  long  as  their 
better  one  ;  the  Rittmeisterinn  would  perhaps  have  let  all 
her  hours,  till  the  speechless  and  deaf  one,  roll  away 
without  testament,  had  not  Thiennette,  during  the  last 
night  before  from  sick-nurse  she  became  corpse-watcher, 
reminded  the  patient  of  the  poor  Conrector,  and  of  his 
meagre,  hunger-bitten  existence,  and  of  the  scanty  aliment 
and  board-wages  which  Fortune  had  thrown  him,  and  of 
his  empty  Future,  where,  like  a  drooping,  yellow  plant  in 
the  parched  deal-box  of  the  school-room,  between  schol- 
ars and  creditors,  he  must  languish  to  the  end.  Her  own 
poverty  offered  her  a  model  of  his  ;  and  her  inward  tears 
were  the  fluid  tints  with  which  she  colored  her  picture. 
As  the  Rittmeisterinn's  testament  related  solely  to  domes- 
tics and  dependants,  and  as  she  began  with  the  male  one, 
Fixlein  stood  at  the  top  ;  and  Death,  who  must  have  been 
a  special  friend  of  the  Conrector's,  did  not  lift  his  scythe 
and  give  the  last  stroke,  till  his  protege  had  been  with 
audible  voice  declared  testamentary  heir ;  then  he  cut  all 
away,  —  life,  testament,  and  hopes. 

When  the  Conrector,  in  a  wash-bill  from  his  mother, 
received  these  two  Death's-posts  and  Job's-posts  in  his 
class,  the  first  thing  he  did  was  to  dismiss  his  class-boys, 
and  break  into  tears  before  reaching  home.  Though  the 
mother  had  informed  him  that  he  had  been  remembered 
in  the  will  (I  could  wish,  however,  that  the  Notary  had 
blabbed  how  much  it  was),  yet  almost  with  every  O  which 
he  masoretically  excerpted  from  his  German  Bible,  and 
entered  in  his  Masoretic  "Work,  great  drops  fell  down  on 
his  pen,  and  made  his  black  ink  pale.  His  sorrow  was 
not  the  gorgeous  sorrow  of  the  Poet,  who  veils  the  gaping 
wounds  of  the  departed  in  the  winding-sheet,  and  breaks 
the  cry  of  anguish  in  soft  tones  of  plaintiveness  ;  nor  the 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  131 

sorrow  of  the  Philosopher,  who,  through  one  open  grave, 
must  look  into  the  whole  catacomb-Necropolis  of  the  Past, 
and  before  whom  the  spectre  of  a  friend  expands  into  the 
spectral  Shadow  of  this  whole  Earth ;  but  it  was  the  woe 
of  a  child,  of  a  mother,  whom  this  thought  itself,  without 
subsidiary  reflections,  bitterly  cuts  asunder :  "  So  I  shall 
never  more  see  thee  ;  so  must  thou  moulder  away,  and  I 
shall  never  see  thee,  thou  good  soul,  never,  never  any 
more  !  "  —  And  even  because  he  neither  felt  the  philo- 
sophical nor  the  poetical  sadness,  every  trifle  could  make 
a  division,  a  break  in  his  mourning  ;  and,  like  a  woman, 
he  was  that  very  evening  capable  of  sketching  some  plans 
for  the  future  employment  of  his  legacy. 

Four  weeks  after,  to  wit,  on  the  5th  of  May,  the  testa- 
ment was  unsealed  ;  but  not  till  the  6th  (Cantata-Sunday) 
did  he  go  down  to  Hukelum.  His  mother  met  his  saluta- 
tions with  tears ;  which  she  shed,  over  the  corpse  for 
grief,  over  the  testament  for  joy.  —  To  the  now  Conrector 
Egidius  Zebedaus  was  left :  In  the  first  place,  a  large 
sumptuous  bed,  with  a  mirror-tester,  in  which  the  giant 
Goliath  might  have  rolled  at  his  ease,  and  to  which  I  and 
my  fair  readers  will  by  and  by  approach  nearer,  to  exam- 
ine it ;  secondly,  there  was  devised  to  him,  as  unpaid 
Easter-godchild-money,  for  every  year  that  he  had  lived, 
one  ducat ;  thirdly,  all  the  admittance  and  instalment 
dues,  which  his  elevation  to  the  Quintate  and  Conrector- 
ate  had  cost  him,  were  to  be  made  good  to  the  utmost 
penny.  "  And  dost  thou  know,  then,"  proceeded  the 
mother,  "  what  the  poor  Friiulein  has  got  ?  Ah  Heaven  ! 
Nothino^ !  Not  one  brass  farthing!"  For  Death  had 
Stiffened  the  hand,  which  was  just  stretching  itself  out  to 
reach  the  poor  Thiennette  a  little  rain-screen  against  the 
foul  weather  of  life.     The  mother  related  this  perverse 


132  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

trick  of  Fortune  with  true  condolence  ;  which  in  women 
dissipates  envy,  and  comes  easier  to  them  than  congratu- 
lation, a  feelnig  belonging  rather  to  men.  In  many  female 
hearts  sympathy  and  envy  are  such  near  door-neighbors 
that  they  could  be  virtuous  nowhere  except  in  Hell,  where 
men  have  such  frightful  times  of  it ;  and  vicious  nowhere 
except  in  Heaven,  where  people  have  more  happiness 
than  they  know  what  to  do  with. 

The  Conrector  was  now  enjoying  on  Earth  that  Heaven 
to  which  his  benefactress  had  ascended.  First  of  all,  he 
started  off —  without  so  much  as  putting  up  his  handker- 
chief, in  which  lay  his  emotion  —  up-stairs  to  see  the  lega- 
cy-bed unshrouded ;  for  he  had  a  female  predilection  for 
furniture.  I  know  not  whether  the  reader  ever  looked  at 
or  mounted  any  of  these  ancient  chivalric  beds,  into  which, 
by  means  of  a  little  stair  w^ithout  balustrades,  you  can 
easily  ascend  ;  and  in  which  you,  properly  speaking,  sleep 
always  at  least  one  story  above  ground.  Nazianzen  in- 
forms us  (Orat.  XVI.)  that  the  Jews,  in  old  times,  had 
high  beds  with  cock-ladders  of  this  sort ;  but  simply  be- 
cause of  vermin.  The  legacy  bed- Ark  was  quite  as  large 
as  one  of  these  ;  and  a  flea  would  have  measured  it,  not  in 
Diameters  of  the  Earth,  but  in  Distances  of  Sirius. 
"When  Fixlein  beheld  this  colossal  dormitory,  with  the 
curtains  drawn  asunder,  and  its  canopy  of  looking-glass, 
he  could  have  longed  to  be  in  it ;  and  had  it  been  in  his 
power  to  cut  from  the  opaque  hemisphere  of  Night,  at  that 
time  in  America,  a  small  section,  he  would  have  estab- 
lished himself  there  along  with  it,  just  to  swim  about,  for 
one  half-hour,  with  his  thin  lath  figure,  in  this  sea  of 
down.  The  mother,  by  longer  chains  of  reasoning  and 
chains  of  calculation  than  the  bed  was,  had  not  succeeded 
in  persuading  him  to  have  the  broad  mirror  on  the  top 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  133 

cut  in  pieces,  though  his  large  dressing-table  had  nothing 
to  see  itself  in  but  a  mere  shaving-glass ;  he  let  the  mirror 
lie  where  it  was  for  this  reason :  "  Should  I  ever,  God  will- 
ing, get  married,"  said  he, "I  shall  then,  towards  morning,  be 
able  to  look  at  my  sleeping  wife,  without  sitting  up  in  bed." 

As  to  the  second  article  of  the  testament,  the  godchild 
Easter-pence,  his  mother  had,  last  night,  arranged  it  per- 
fectly. The  Lawyer  took  her  evidence  on  the  years  of 
the  heir ;  and  these  she  had  stated  at  exactly  the  teeth- 
number,  two-and-thirty.  She  would  willingly  have  lied, 
and  passed  off  her  son,  like  an  Inscription,  for  older  than 
he  was  ;  but  against  this  venia  cetatis,  she  saw  too  well 
the  authorities  would  have  taken  exception,  "  that  it  was 
falsehood  and  cozenage ;  had  the  son  been  two-and-thirty, 
he  must  have  been  dead  some  time  ago,  as  it  could  not  but 
be  presumed  that  he  then  was." 

And  just  as  she  was  recounting  this,  a  servant  from 
Schadeck  called  ;  and  delivered  to  the  Conrector,  in  return 
for  a  discharge  and  ratification  of  the  birth-certificate  giv- 
en out-  by  his  mother,  a  gold  bar  of  two-and-thirty  ducat 
age-counters,  like  a  helm-bar  for  the  voyage  of  his  life  ; 
Herr  von  Aufhammer  was  too  proud  to  engage  in  any 
pettifogging  discussion   over  a  plebeian  birth-certificate. 

And  thus,  by  a  proud  open-handedness,  was  one  of  the 
best  lawsuits  thrown  to  the  dogs ;  seeing  this  gold  bar 
might,  in  the  wire-mill  of  the  judgment-bench,  have  been 
drawn  out  into  the  finest  threads.  From  such  a  tangled 
lock,  which  was  not  to  be  unravelled  —  for  in  the  first 
place,  there  was  no  document  to  prove  Fixlein's  age  ;  in 
the  second  place,  so  long  as  he  lived,  the  necessary  conclu- 
sion was,  that  he  was  not  yet  thirty-two  *  —  from  such  a 

*  As,  by  the  evidence  at  present  before  us,  we  can  found  on  no  other 
presumption,  than  that  he  must  die  in  his  thirty-second  year  5  it  would 


134  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

lock  might  not  only  silk  and  hanging-cords,  but  whole 
drag  net?:,  have  been  spun  and  twisted?  Clients  in  gen- 
eral would  have  less  reason  to  complain  of  their  causes, 
if  these  lasted  longer.  Philosophers  contend  for  thou- 
sands of  years  over  philosophical  questions  ;  and  it  seems 
an  unaccountable  thing,  therefore,  that  Advocates  should 
attempt  to  end  their  juristical  questions  in  a  space  of 
eighty,  or  even  sometimes  of  sixty  years.  But  the  pro- 
fessors of  Law  are  not  to  blame  for  this ;  on  the  other 
hand,  as  Lessing  asserts  of  Truth,  that  not  the  finding, 
but  the  seeking  of  it  profits  men,  and  that  he  himself 
would  willingly  make  over  his  claim  to  all  truths  in  return 
for  the  sweet  labor  of  investigation,  so  is  the  professor  of 
Law  not  profited  by  the  finding  and  deciding,  but  by  the 
investigation  of  a  juridical  truth,  —  which  is  called  plead- 
ing and  practising,  —  and  he  would  willingly  consent  to 
approximate  to  Truth  forever,  like  an  hyperbola  to  its 
asymptote,  without  ever  meeting  it,  seeing  he  can  subsist 
as  an  honorable  man  with  wife  and  child,  let  such  approxi- 
mation be  as  tedious  as  it  likes. 

The  Schadeck  servant  had,  besides  the  gold  legacy,  a 
further  commission  from  the  Lawyer,  whereby  the  testa- 
mentary heir  was  directed  to  sum  up  the  mint-dues  which 
he  had  been  obliged  to  pay  while  lying  under  the  coining- 
press  of  his  superiors,  as  Quintus  and  Conrector ;  the 
which,  properly  documented  and  authenticated,  were  forth- 
with to  be  made  good  to  him. 

Our  Conrector,  who  now  rated  himself  amons;  the  great 
capitalists  of  the    world,  held  his  short  gold-roll  like  a 

follow,  that,  in  case  he  died  two-and-thirty  years  after  the  death  of  the 
testatrix,  no  farthing  could  be  claimed  by  himj  since,  according  to 
our  fiction,  at  the  making  of  the  testament  he  was  not  even  one  year 
old. 


LIFE     OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  I35 

sceptre  in  hib  hand  ;  like  a  basket-net  lifted  from  the  sea 
of  the  Future,  which  was  now  to  run  on,  and  bring  him 
all  manner  of  fed-fishes,  well- washed,  sound,  and  in  good 
season. 

I  cannot  relate  all  things  at  once ;  else  I  should  ere 
now  have  told  the  reader,  who  must  long  have  been  wait- 
ing for  it,  that  to  the  moneyed  Conrector  his  two-and-thirty 
godchild-pennies  but  too  much  prefigured  the  two-and- 
thirty  years  of  his  age  ;  besides  which,  to-day  the  Canta- 
ta-Sunday, this  Bartholomew-night  and  Second  of  Sep- 
tember of  his  family,  came  in  as  a  further  aggravation. 
The  mother,  who  should  have  known  the  age  of  her  child, 
said  she  had  forgotten  it ;  but  durst  wager  he  was  thirty- 
two  a  year  ago ;  only  the  Lawyer  was  a  man  you  could 
not  speak  to.  "  I  could  swear  it  myself,"  said  the  capital- 
ist ;  "  I  recollect  how  stupid  I  felt  Cantata-Sunday  last 
year."  Fixlein  beheld  Death,  not  as  the  poet  does,  in  the 
uptowering,  asunder-driving  concave-mirror  of  Imagina- 
tion ;  but  as  the  child,  as  the  savage,  as  the  peasant,  as 
the  woman  does,  in  the  plane  octavo-mirror  on  the  board 
of  a  Prayer-book ;  and  Death  looked  to  him  like  an  old 
white-headed  man,  sunk  down  into  slumber  in  some  lat- 
ticed pew.  — 

And  yet  he  thought  oftener  of  him  than  last  year ;  for 
joy  readily  melts  us  into  softness ;  and  the  lackered 
Wheel  of  Fortune  is  a  cistern-wheel  that  empties  its 
water  in  our  eyes  ....  But  the  friendly  Genius  of  this 
terrestrial,  or  rather  aquatic  Ball  —  for,  in  the  physical 
and  in  the  moral  world,  there  are  more  tear-seas  than  firm 
land  —  has  provided  for  the  poor  water-insects  that  float 
about  in  it,  for  us,  namely,  a  quite  special  elixir  against 
spasms  in  the  soul ;  I  declare  this  same  Genius  must  have 
studied  the  whole  pathology  of  man  with  care  j  for  to  the 


136  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

poor  devil  who  is  no  Stoic,  and  can  pay  no  Soul-doctor, 
that  for  the  fissures  of  his  cranium  and  his  breast  might 
prepare  costly  prescriptions  of  simples,  he  has  stowed  up 
cask-wise  in  all  cellarages  a  precious  wound-water,  which 
the  patient  has  only  to  take  and  pour  over  his  slashes  and 
bone-breakages  —  gin-twist,  I  mean,  or  beer,  or  a  touch 
of  wine  ....  By  Heaven  !  it  is  either  stupid  ingratitude 
towards  this  medicinal  Genius  on  the  one  hand,  or  theo- 
logical confusion  of  permitted  tippling  with  prohibited 
drunkenness  on  the  other,  if  men  do  not  thank  God  that 
they  have  something  at  hand,  which,  in  the  nervous  ver- 
tigoes of  life,  will  instantly  supply  the  place  of  Philoso- 
phy, Christianity,  Judaism,  Paganism,  and  Time ;  — 
liquor,  as  I  said. 

The  Conrector  had  long  before  sunset  given  the  village 
post  three  groschens  of  post-money,  and  commissioned  — 
for  he  had  a  whole  cabinet  of  ducats  in  his  pocket,  which 
all  day  he  was  surveying  in  the  dark  with  his  hand  — 
three  thalers'  worth  of  Pontac  from  the  town.  '•  I  must 
have  a  Cantata  merry-making,"  said  he  ;  "  if  it  be  my 
last  day,  let  it  be  my  gayest  too  ! "  I  could  wish  he  had 
given  a  larger  order ;  but  he  kept  the  bit  of  moderation 
between  his  teeth  at  all  times ;  even  in  a  threatened  sham- 
death-night,  and  in  the  midst  of  jubilee.  The  question 
is,  whether  he  would  not  have  restricted  himself  to  a  sin- 
gle bottle,  if  he  had  not  wished  to  treat  his  mother  and 
the  Friiulein.  Had  he  lived  in  the  tenth  century,  when 
the  Day  of  Judgment  was  thought  to  be  at  hand,  or  in 
other  centuries,  when  new  Noah's  Deluges  were  expected, 
and  when,  accordingly,  like  sailors  in  a  shipwreck,  people 
boused  up  all,  —  he  would  not  have  spent  one  kreuzer 
more  on  that  account.  His  joy  was,  that  with  his  legacy 
he  could  now  satisfy  his  head-creditor  Steinberger,  and 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  137 

leave  the  world  an  honest  man.  Just  people,  who  make 
much  of  money,  pay  their  debts  the  most  punctually. 

The  purple  Pontac  arrived  at  a  time  when  Fixlein 
could  compare  the  red-chalk-drawings  and  red-letter-titles 
of  joy,  which  it  would  bring  out  on  the  cheeks  of  its 
drinker  and  drinkeresses,  —  with  the  Evening-carnation 
of  the  last  clouds  about  the  Sun 

I  declare,  among  all  the  spectators  of  this  History,  no 
one  can  be  thinking  more  about  poor  Thiennette  than  I ; 
nevertheless,  it  is  not  permitted  me  to  bring  her  out  from 
her  tiring-room  to  my  historical  scene  before  the  time. 
Poor  girl !  The  Conrector  cannot  wish  more  warmly 
than  his  Biographer,  that,  in  the  Temple  of  Nature  as  in 
that  of  Jerusalem,  there  were  a  special  door  —  besides 
that  of  Death  —  standing  open,  through  which  only  the 
afflicted  entered,  that  a  Priest  might  give  them  solace. 
But  Thiennette's  heart-sickness  over  all  her  vanished 
prospects,  over  her  entombed  benefactress,  over  a  whole 
life  enwrapped  in  the  pall,  had  hitherto,  in  a  grief  which 
the  stony  Rittmeister  rather  made  to  bleed  than  alleviated, 
swept  all  away  from  her,  occupations  excepted  ;  had  fet- 
tered all  her  steps  which  led  not  to  some  task,  and  granted 
to  her  eyes  nothing  to  dry  them  or  gladden  them,  save 
down-falling  eyelids  full  of  dreams  and  sleep. 

All  sorrow  raises  us  above  the  civic  Ceremonial-law, 
and  makes  the  Prosaist  a  Psalmist ;  in  sorrow  alone  have 
women  courage  to  front  opinion.  Thiennette  walked  out 
only  in  the  evening,  and  then  only  in  the  garden. 

The  Conrector  could  scarcely  wait  for  the  appearance 
of  his  fair  friend,  to  offer  his  thanks,  —  and  to-night  also 
—  his  Pontac.  Three  Pontac  decanters  and  three  wine- 
glasses were  placed  outside  on  the  projecting  window-sill 
of  his  cottage  ;  and  every  time  he  returned  from  the  dusky 


138  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

covered-way  amid  the  flower  forests,  he  drank  a  little 
from  his  glass,  —  and  the  mother  sipped  now  and  then 
from  within  through  the  opened  window. 

I  have  already  said,  his  Life-laboratory  lay  in  the  south- 
west corner  of  the  garden  or  park,  over  against  the  Castle- 
Escurial,  which  stretched  back  into  the  village.  In  the 
northwest  corner  bloomed  an  acacia  grove,  like  the  floral 
crown  of  the  garden.  Fixlein  turned  his  steps  in  that 
direction  also ;  to  see  if,  perhaps,  he  might  not  cast  a 
happy  glance  through  the  wide-latticed  grove  over  the 
intervening  meads  to  Thiennette.  He  recoiled  a  little  be- 
fore two  stone  steps  leading  down  into  a  pond  before  this 
grove,  which  were  sprinkled  with  fresh  blood.  On  the 
flags,  also,  there  was  blood  hanging.  Man  shudders  at 
this  oil  of  our  life's  lamp  where  he  finds  it  shed  ;  to  him  it 
is  the  red  death-signature  of  the  Destroying  Angel.  Fix- 
lein hurried  apprehensively  into  the  grove  ;  and  found 
here  his  paler  benefactress  leaning  on  the  flower-bushes  ; 
her  hands  with  her  knitting-ware  sunk  into  her  bosom, 
her  eyes  lying  under  their  lids  as  if  in  the  bandage  of 
slumber  ;  her  left  arm  in  the  real  bandage  of  bloodletting ; 
and  with  cheeks  to  which  the  twilight  was  lending  as 
much  red,  as  late  woundings  —  this  day's  included  —  had 
taken  from  them.  Fixlein,  after  his  first  terror  —  not  at 
this  flower's  sleep,  but  at  his  own  abrupt  entrance  — began 
to  unroll  the  spiral  butterfly's-sueker  of  his  vision,  and  to 
lay  it  on  the  motionless  leaves  of  this  same  sleeping 
flower.  At  bottom,  I  may  assert,  that  this  was  the  first 
time  he  had  ever  looked  at  her ;  he  was  now  among 
the  thirties  ;  and  he  still  continued  to  believe,  that,  in  a 
young  lady,  he  must  look  at  the  clothes  only,  not  the  per- 
son, and  wait  on  her  with  his  ears,  not  with  his  eyes. 

I  impute  it  to  the  elevating  influences  of  the  Pontac, 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  139 

that  the  Conrector  plucked  up  courage  to  —  turn,  to  come 
back,  and  employ  the  resuscitating  means  of  coughing, 
sneezing,  trampling,  and  calling  to  his  Shock,  in  stronger 
and  stronger  doses  on  the  fair  sleeper.  To  take  her  by 
the  hand,  and  with  some  medical  apology,  gently  pull  her 
out  of  sleep,  this  was  an  audacity  of  which  the  Conrector, 
so  long  as  he  could  stand  for  Pontac,  and  had  any  grain 
of  judgment  left,  could  never  dream. 

However,  he  did  awake  her,  by  those  other  means. 

Wearied,  heavy-laden  Thiennette  !  how  slowly  does 
thy  eye  open  !  The  warmest  balsam  of  this  earth,  soft 
sleep  has  shifted  aside,  and  the  night-air  of  memory  is 
again  blowing  on  thy  naked  wounds  !  —  and  yet  was  the 
smiling  friend  of  thy  youth  the  fairest  object  which  thy 
eye  could  light  on,  when  it  sank  from  the  hanging-garden 
of  Dreams  into  this  lower  one  round  thee. 

She  herself  was  little  conscious,  —  and  the  Conrector 
not  at  all,  —  that  she  was  bending  her  flower-leaves  im- 
perceptibly towards  a  terrestrial  body,  namely,  towards 
Fixlein.  She  resembled  an  Italian  flower,  that  contains 
cunningly  concealed  within  it  a  new-year's  gift,  which  the 
receiver  knows  not  at  first  how  to  extract.  But  now  the 
golden  chain  of  her  late  kind  deed  attracted  her  as  well 
towards  him,  as  him  towards  her.  She  at  once  gave  her 
eye  and  her  voice  a  mask  of  joy  ;  for  she  did  not  put  her 
tears,  as  CathoHcs  do  those  of  Christ,  in  relic-vials,  upon 
altars,  to  be  worshipped.  He  could  very  suitably  preface 
his  invitation  to  the  Pontac  festival  with  a  long  acknowl- 
edgment of  thanks  for  the  kind  intervention  which  had 
opened  to  him  the  sources  for  procuring  it.  She  rose 
slowly,  and  walked  with  him  to  the  banquet  of  wine  ;  but 
he  was  not  so  discreet,  as  at  first  to  attempt  leading  her, 
or  rather  not  so  courageous  ;  he  could  more  easily  have 


140  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

offered  a  young  lady  his  hand  (that  is,  with  marriage  ring) 
than  offered  her  his  arm.  One  only  time  in  his  life  had  he 
escorted  a  female,  a  Lombard  Countess  from  the  the- 
atre ;  a  thing  truly  not  to  be  believed,  were  not  this  the 
secret  of  it,  that  he  was  obliged  ;  for  the  lady,  a  foreigner, 
parted  in  the  press  from  all  her  people,  in  a  bad  night,  had 
laid  hold  of  him  as  a  sable  Abbe  by  the  arm,  and  re- 
quested him  to  take  her  to  her  inn.  He,  however,  knew 
the  fashions  of  society,  and  attended  her  no  farther  than 
the  porch  of  his  Quintus-mansion,  and  there  directed  her 
with  his  finger  to  her  inn,  which,  with  thirty  blazing 
windows,  was  looking  down  from  another  street. 

These  things  he  cannot  help.  But  to-night  he  had 
scarcely,  with  his  fair,  faint  companion,  reached  the  bank 
of  the  pond,  into  which  some  superstitious  dread  of  water- 
spirits  had  lately  poured  the  pure  blood  of  her  left  arm, 
—  when,  in  his  terror  lest  she  fell  in,  with  the  rest  of  her 
blood,  over  the  brink,  he  quite  vahantly  laid  hold  of  the 
sick  arm.  Thus  will  much  Pontac  and  a  little  courage  at 
all  times  put  a  Conrector  in  case  to  lay  hold  of  a  Frau- 
lein.  I  aver  that  at  the  banquet-board  of  the  wine,  at  the 
window-sill,  he  continued  in  the  same  conducting  position. 
What  a  soft  group  in  the  penumbra  of  the  Earth,  while 
Night,  with  its  dusky  waters,  was  falling  deeper  and 
deeper,  and  the  silver-light  of  the  Moon  was  already 
glancing  back  from  the  copper  ball  of  the  steeple  !  I  call 
the  group  soft,  because  it  consists  of  a  maiden  that  in  two 
senses  has  been  bleeding ;  of  a  mother  again  with  tears 
giving  her  thanks  for  the  happiness  of  her  child  ;  and  of  a 
pious,  modest  man,  pouring  wine,  and  drinking  health  to 
both,  and  who  traces  in  his  veins  a  burning  lava-stream, 
which  is  boiling  through  his  heart,  and  threatening  piece 
by  piece  to  melt  it  and  bear  it  away.     A  candle  stood 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  14. 

without  among  the  three  bottles,  like  Reason  among  the 
Passions  ;  on  this  account  the  Conrector  looked  without 
intermission  at  the  window-panes,  for  on  them  (the  dark- 
ness of  the  room  served  as  mirror-foil)  was  painted, 
among  other  faces  which  Fixlein  liked,  the  face  he  liked 
best  of  all,  and  which  he  dared  to  look  at  only  in  reflec- 
tion, the  face  of  Thiennette. 

Every  minute  was  a  Federation-festival,  and  every 
second  a  Preparation-Sabbath  for  it.  The  Moon  was 
gleaming  from  the  evening  dew,  and  the  Pontac  from 
their  eyes,  and  the  bean-stalks  were  casting  a  shorter 
grating  of  shadow.  The  quicksilver-drops  of  stars  were 
hanging  more  and  more  continuous  in  the  sable  of  night. 
The  warm  vapor  of  the  wine  set  our  two  friends  (like 
steam-engines)  again  in  motion. 

Nothino;  makes  the  heart  fuller  and  bolder  than  walking 
to  and  fro  in  the  night.  Fixlein  now  led  the  Fraulein  in 
his  arm  without  scruple.  By  reason  of  her  lancet-wound, 
Thiennette  could  only  put  her  hand,  in  a  clasping  position, 
in  his  arm  ;  and  he,  to  save  her  the  trouble  of  holding 
fast,  held  fast  himself,  and  pressed  her  fingers  as  well  as 
might  be  with  his  arm  to  his  heart.  It  would  betray  a 
total  want  of  polished  manners  to  censure  his.  At  the 
same  time,  trifles  are  the  provender  of  Love ;  the  fingers 
are  electric  discharges  of  a  fire  sparkling  along  every 
fibre ;  sighs  are  the  guiding  tones  of  two  approximating 
hearts  ;  and  the  worst  and  most  effectual  thing  of  all  in 
such  a  case  is  some  misfortune ;  for  the  fire  of  Love,  like 
that  of  naphtha,  likes  to  swim  on  water.  Two  tear-drops, 
one  in  another's,  one  in  your  own  eyes,  compose,  as  with 
two  convex  lenses,  a  microscope  which  enlarges  every- 
thing, and  changes  all  sorrows  into  charms.  Good  sex  ! 
I  too  consider   every  sister  in   misfortune   as   fair ;  and, 


142  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

perhaps,  thou  wouldst  deserve  the  name  of  the  Fair,  even 
because  thou  art  the  Suffering  sex ! 

And  if  Professor  Hunczogsky  in  Vienna  modelled  all 
the  wounds  of  the  human  frame  in  wax,  to  teach  his  pupils 
how  to  cure  them,  I  also,  thou  good  sex,  am  representing 
in  little  figures  the  cuts  and  scars  of  thy  spirit,  though 
only  to  keep  away  rude  hands  from  inflicting  new 
ones 

Thiennctte  felt  not  the  loss  of  the  inheritance,  but  of 
her  that  should  have  left  it ;  and  this  more  deeply  for 
one  little  trait,  which  she  had  already  told  his  mother,  as 
she  now  told  him.  In  the  last  two  nights  of  the  Rittmeis- 
terinn,  when  the  feverish  watching  was  holding  up  to 
Thiennette's  imagination  nothing  but  the  winding-sheet 
and  the  mourning-coaches  of  her  protectress ;  while  she 
was  sitting  at  the  foot  of  the  bed,  looking  on  those  fixed 
eyes,  unconsciously  quick  droj)s  often  trickled  over  her 
cheeks,  while  in  thought  she  prefigured  the  heavy,  cum- 
brous dressing  of  her  benefactress  for  the  coffin.  Once 
after  midnight,  the  dying  lady  pointed  with  her  finger  to 
her  own  lips.  Thiennette  understood  her  not ;  but  rose 
and  bent  over  her  face.  The  Enfeebled  tried  to  lift  her 
head,  but  could  not,  —  and  only  rounded  her  lips.  At 
last,  a  thought  glanced  through  Thiennette,  that  the  De- 
parting, vv^hose  dead  arms  could  now  press  no  beloved 
heart  to  her  own,  wished  that  she  herself  should  embrace 
her.  O  then,  that  instant,  keen  and  tearful,  she  pressed 
her  warm  lips  on  the  colder,  —  and  she  was  silent  like  her 
that  was  to  speak  no  more,  —  and  she  embraced  alone 
and  was  not  embraced.  About  four  o'clock,  the  finger 
waved  again  ;  she  sank  down  on  the  stiffened  lips,  —  but 
this  had  been  no  signal,  for  the  lips  of  her  friend  under 
the  long  kiss  had  grown  stiff  and  cold 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  143 

How  deeply  now,  before  the  infinite  Eternity's-counte- 
nance  of  Night,  did  the  cutting  of  this  thought  pass 
through  Fixlein's  warm  soul :  "  O  thou  forsaken  one  beside 
me  !  No  happy  accident,  no  twilight  hast  thou,  like  that 
now  glimmering  in  the  heavens,  to  point  to  the  prospect 
of  a  sunny  day  ;  without  parents  art  thou,  without  brother, 
without  friend;  here  alone  on  a  disblossomed,  emptied 
corner  of  the  Earth ;  and  thou,  left  Harvest-flower,  must 
wave  lonely  and  frozen  over  the  withered  stubble  of  the 
Past."  That  was  the  meaning  of  his  thoughts,  whose  in- 
ternal words  were  :  "  Poor  young  lady !  Not  so  much  as 
a  half-cousin  left;  no  nobleman  will  seek  her,  and  she 
grows  old  so  forgotten,  and  she  is  so  good  from  the  very 
heart,  —  Me  she  has  made  happy,  —  Ah,  had  I  the  pre- 
sentation to  the  parish  of  Hukelum  in  my  pocket,  I  should 
make  a  trial."  .  .  .  Their  mutual  lives,  which  a  straitcut- 
ting  bond  of  Destiny  was  binding  so  closely  together,  now 
rose  before  him  overhung  with  sable,  —  and  he  forthwith 
conducted  his  friend  (for  a  bashful  man  may  in  an  hour 
and  a  half  be  transformed  into  the  boldest,  and  then  con- 
tinues so)  back  to  the  last  flask,  that  all  these  upsprouting 
thistles  and  passion-flowers  of  sorrow  might  therewith  be 
swept  away.  I  remark,  in  passing,  that  this  was  stupid  ; 
the  torn  vine  is  full  of  water-veins  as  well  as  grapes  ;  and 
a  soft  oppressed  heart  the  beverage  of  joy  can  melt  only 
into  tears. 

If  any  man  disagree  with  me,  I  shall  desire  him  to 
look  at  the  Conrector,  who  demonstrates  my  experimental 
maxim  like  a  very  syllogism.  —  One  might  arrive  at 
some  philosophic  views,  if  one  traced  out  the  causes,  why 
liquors  —  that  is  to  say,  in  the  long  run,  more  plentiful 
secretion  of  the  nervous  spirits  —  make  men  at  once 
pious,  soft,  and   poetical.      The    Poet,   like   Apollo   his 


144  LIFL    OF    QUIKTUS    FIXLEIN. 

fjither,  is  forever  a  youth  ;  and  is,  what  other  men  are 
only  once,  namely,  in  love,  —  or  only  after  Pontac,  name- 
ly, intoxicated,  —  all  his  hfe  long.  Fixlein,  who  had  been 
no  poet  in  the  morning,  now  became  one  at  night ;  wine 
made  him  pious  and  soft ;  the  Harmonica-bells  in  man, 
which  sound  to  the  tones  of  a  higher  world,  must,  like  the 
glass  Ilannonica-bells,  if  they  are  to  act,  be  kept  moist. 

He  was  now  standing  with  her  again  beside  the  waver- 
ing pond,  in  which  the  second  blue  hemisphere  of  heaven, 
with  dancing  stars  and  amid  quivering  trees,  was  playing: 
over  the  green  hills  ran  the  white,  crooked  footpaths 
dimly  along ;  on  the  one  mountain  was  the  twilight  sink- 
ing together,  on  the  other  was  the  mist  of  night  rising 
up  :  and  over  all  these  vapors  of  life  hung  motionless  and 
Hauling  the  thousand-armed  lustre  of  the  starry  heaven, 
and  every  arm  held  in  it  a  burning  galaxy.  .  .  . 

It  now  struck  eleven.  .  .  .  Amid  such  scenes,  an  un- 
known hand  stretches  itself  out  in  man.  and  writes  in 
foreign  language  on  his  heart,  a  dread  Me7ie  Mene  Tehel 
Upharsin.  "  Perhaps  by  twelve  I  am  dead,"  thought  our 
friend,  in  whose  soul  the  Cantata-Sunday,  with  all  its 
black  funeral  piles,  was  mounting  up. 

The  whole  future  Crucifixion  of  his  friend  lay  prickly 
and  bethorned  before  him ;  and  he  saw  every  bloody 
trace  from  which  she  lifted  her  foot,  —  she  who  had 
made  his  own  way  soft  with  flowers  and  leaves.  He 
could  no  longer  restrain  himself;  trembling  in  his  whole 
frame,  and  with  a  trembling  voice,  he  solemnly  said  to 
her :  "  If  the  Lord  this  night  call  me  away,  \et  the  half 
of  my  fortune  be  yours  ;  for  it  is  your  goodness  I  must 
thank  that  I  am  free  of  debts,  as  few  Teachers  are." 

Thiennette.  unacquainted  with  our  sex,  naturally  mis- 
took this   speech   for  a  proposal   of   marriage  ;    and  the 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  145 

fingers  of  her  wounded  arm  to-night  for  the  first  time 
pressed  suddenly  against  the  arm  in  which  they  lay ;  the 
only  living  mortal's  arm  by  which  Joy,  Love,  and  the 
Earth  were  still  united  with  her  bosom.  The  Conrector, 
rapturously  terrified  at  the  first  pressure  of  a  female  hand, 
bent  over  his  right  to  take  hold  of  her  left ;  and  Thiennette, 
observing  his  unsuccessful  movement,  lifted  her  fingers, 
and  laid  her  whole  wounded  arm  in  his,  and  her  whole 
left  hand  in  his  right.  Two  lovers  dwell  in  the  Whisper- 
ing-gallery,* w^here  the  faintest  breath  bodies  itself  forth 
into  a  sound.  The  good  Conrector  received  and  returned 
this  blissful  love-pressure,  wherewith  our  poor,  powerless 
soul,  stammering,  hemmed  in,  longing,  distracted,  seeks 
for  a  warmer  language,  which  exists  not ;  he  was  over- 
powered ;  he  had  not  the  courage  to  look  at  her ;  but  he 
looked  into  the  gleam  of  the  twilight,  and  said  (and  here 
for  unspeakable  love  the  tears  were  running  warm  over 
bis  cheeks)  :  "  Ah,  I  will  give  you  all ;  fortune,  life,  and 
all  that  I  have,  my  heart  and  my  hand." 

She  was  about  to  answer,  but,  casting  a  side  glance,  she 
cried,  wdth  a  shriek  :  "  Ah,  Heaven  ! "  He  started  round, 
and  perceived  the  white  muslin  sleeve  all  dyed  with 
blood ;  for  in  putting  her  arm  into  his,  she  had  pushed 
away  the  bandage  from  the  open  vein.  With  the  speed 
of  lightning,  he  hurried  her  into  the  acacia-grove  ;  the 
blood  was  already  running  from  the  muslin ;  he  grew 
paler  than  she,  for  every  drop  of  it  was  coming  from  his 
heart.  The  blue-white  arm  was  bared  ;  the  bandage  was 
put  on :  he  tore  a  piece  of  gold  from  his  pocket;  clapped 
it,  as  one  does  with  open  arteries,  on  the  spouting  foun- 
tain, and  bolted  with  this  golden  bar,  and  with  the  bandage 

*  In  St.  Paul's  Church  at  London,  where  the  sHghtest  whisper 
sounds  over,  across  a  space  of  143  feet. 


146  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

over  it,  the  door  out  of  which  her  afflicted  hfe  was  hurry- 
ing. — 

When  it  was  over,  she  looked  up  to  him  ;  pale,  languid, 
but  her  eyes  were  two  glistening  fountains  of  an  unspeak- 
able love,  full  of  sorrow  and  full  of  gratitude.  —  The 
exhausting  loss  of  blood  was  spreading  her  soul  asunder 
in  sighs.  Thiennette  was  dissolved  into  inexpressible 
softness;  and  the  heart  lacerated  by  so  many  years,  by 
so  many  arrows,  was  plunging  with  all  its  wounds  in 
warm  streams  of  tears,  to  be  healed,  as  chapped  flutes 
close  together  by  lying  in  water,  and  get  back  their  tones. 
Before  such  a  magic  form,  before  such  a  pure,  heavenly 
love,  her  sympathizing  friend  was  melted  between  the 
flames  of  joy  and  grief;  and  sank,  with  stifled  voice,  and 
bent  down  by  love  and  rapture,  on  the  pale,  angelic  face, 
the  lips  of  which  he  timidly  pressed,  but  did  not  kiss,  till 
all-powerful  Love  bound  its  girdles  round  them,  and  drew 
the  two  "closer  and  closer  together,  and  their  two  souls, 
like  two  tears,  melted  into  one.  O  now,  when  it  struck 
twelve,  the  hour  of  death,  did  not  the  lover  fancy  that 
her  lips  were  drawing  his  soul  away,  and  all  the  fibres 
and  all  the  nerves  of  his  life  closed  spasmodically  round 
the  last  heart  in  this  world,  round  the  last  rapture  of 
existence.  .  .  .  Yes,  happy  man,  thou  didst  express  thy 
love  ;  for  in  thy  love  thou  thoughtest  to  die.  .  .  . 

However,  he  did  not  die.  After  midnight,  there  floated 
a  balmy  morning  air  through  the  shaken  flowers,  and  the 
whole  spring  was  breathing.  The  blissful  lover,  setting 
bounds  even  to  his  sea  of  joy,  reminded  his  delicate  be- 
loved, who  was  now  his  bride,  of  the  dangers  from  night- 
cold  ;  and  himself  of  the  longer  night-cold  of  Death, 
which  was  now  for  long  years  passed  over.  —  Innocent 
and  blessed,  they  rose  from  the  grove  of  their  betroth- 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  147 

ment,  from  its  dust  broken  by  white  acacia-flowers  and 
straggling  moonbeams.  And  without,  they  felt  as  if  a 
whole  wide  Past  had  sunk  away  in  a  convulsion  of  the 
world  ;  all  was  new,  light,  and  young.  The  sky  stood  full 
of  glittering  dew-drops  from  the  everlasting  Morning ; 
and  the  stars  quivered  joyfully  asunder,  and  sank,  re- 
solved into  beams,  down  into  the  hearts  of  men.  —  The 
Moon,  with  her  fountain  of  light,  had  overspread  and 
kindled  all  the  garden,  and  was  hanging  above  in  a 
starless  blue,  as  if  she  had  consumed  the  nearest  stars  ; 
and  she  seemed  like  a  smiiller  wandering  Spring,  like  a 
Christ's-face  smiling  in  love  of  man.  — 

Under  this  light  they  looked  at  one  another  for  the  first 
time  after  the  first  words  of  love  ;  and  the  sky  gleamed 
magically  down  on  the  disordered  features  with  which  the 
first  rapture  of  love  was  still  standing  written  on  their 
faces 

Dream,  ye  beloved,  as  ye  wake,  happy  as  in  Paradise, 
innocent  as  in  Paradise ! 


SIXTH    LETTER-BOX. 


Office-Impost.  —  One  of  the  most  important  of  Petitions. 


HE  finest  thing  was  his  awakening  in  his  Eu- 
ropean Settlement  in  the  giant  Sehadeck  bed  ! 
—  With  the  inflammatory,  tickh'ng,  eating  fe- 
ver of  love  in  his  breast ;  with  the  triumphant 
feeling  that  he  had  now  got  the  introductory  programme 
of  love  put  happily  by ;  and  with  the  sweet  resurrection 
from  his  living,  prophetic  burial ;  and  with  the  joy  that 
now,  among  his  thirties,  he  could,  for  the  first  time,  cher- 
ish hopes  of  a  longer  life  (and  did  not  longer  mean  at 
least  till  seventy  ?)  than  he  could  ten  years  ago ;  —  with 
all  this  stirring  life-balsam,  in  which  the  living  fire-wheel 
of  his  heart  was  rapidly  revolving,  he  lay  here,  and 
laughed  at  his  glancing  portrait  in  the  bed-canopy;  but 
he  could  not  do  it  long ;  he  was  obliged  to  move.  For  a 
less  happy  man,  it  would  have  been  gratifying  to  have 
measured  —  as  pilgrims  measure  with  the  length  of  their 
pilgrimage,  not  so  much  by  steps  as  by  body-lengths, 
like  Earth-diameters  —  the  superficial  content  of  the  bed. 
But  Fixlein,  for  his  own  part,  had  to  launch  from  his  bed 
into  warm,  billowy  life  ;  he  had  now  his  dear  good  Earth 
again  to  look  after,  and  a  Conrectorship  thereon,  and  a 
bride  to  boot.  Besides  all  this,  his  mother  down-stairs 
now   admitted   that   he   had   last   night    actually   glided 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  I49 

through  beneath  the  scythe  of  Death,  like  supple  grass, 
and  that  yesterday  she  had  not  told  him,  merely  out  of 
fear  of  his  fear.  Still  a  cold  shudder  went  over  him  — 
especially  as  he  was  sober  now  —  when  he  looked  round 
at  the  high  Tarpeian  Rock,  four  hours'  distance  behind 
him,  on  the  battlements  of  which  he  had  last  night 
walked  hand  in  hand  with  Death. 

The  only  thing  that  grieved  him  was,  that  it  was  Mon- 
day, and  that  he  must  back  to  the  Gymnasium.  Such  a 
freightage  of  joys  he  had  never  taken  with  him  on  his 
road  to  town.  After  four,  he  issued  from  his  house,  sat- 
isfied with  coffee  (which  he  drank  in  Hukelum  merely  for 
his  mother's  sake,  who,  for  two  days  after,  would  still 
have  portions  of  this  woman's-wine  to  draw  from  the  lees 
of  the  pot-sediment),  into  the  cooling  dawning  May-morn- 
ing (for  joy  needs  coolness,  sorrow  sun)  ;  his  Betrothed 
comes  —  not  indeed  to  meet  him,  but  still  —  into  his  hear- 
ing, by  her  distant  morning  hymn ;  he  makes  but  one 
momentary  turn  into  the  blissful  haven  of  the  blooming 
acacia-grove,  which  still,  like  the  covenant  sealed  in  it, 
has  no  thorns ;  he  dips  his  warm  hand  in  the  cold-bath  of 
the  dewy  leaves;  he  wades  with  pleasure  through  the 
beautifying-water  of  the  dew,  which,  as  it  imparts  color 
to  faces,  eats  it  away  from  boots  ("  but  with  thirty  ducats, 
a  Conrector  may  make  shift  to  keep  two  pairs  of  boots  on 
the  hook").  And  now  the  Moon,  as  it  were  the  hanging 
seal  of  his  last  night's  happiness,  dips  down  into  the  West, 
like  an  emptied  bucket  of  light,  and  in  the  East  the  other 
overrunning  bucket,  the  Sun,  mounts  up,  and  the  gushes 
of  light  flow  broader  and  broader. 

The  city  stood  in  the  celestial  flames  of  Morning.  Here 
his  divining-rod  (his  gold-roll,  which,  excepting  one  six- 
teenth of  an  inch  broken  off  from  it,  he  carried  along 


150  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

with  him)  began  to  quiver  over  all  the  spots  where  booty 
and  silver-veins  of  enjoyment  were  concealed ;  and  our 
rod-diviner  easily  discovered  that  the  city  and  the  future 
were  a  true  entire  Potosi  of  delights. 

In  his  Conrectorate  closet  he  fell  upon  his  knees  and 
thanked  God  —  not  so  much  for  his  heritage  and  bride  as 
—  for  his  life ;  for  he  had  gone  away  on  Sunday  morning 
with  doubts  whether  he  should  ever  come  back ;  and  it 
was  purely  out  of  love  to  the  reader,  and  fear  lest  he 
might  fret  himself  too  much  with  apprehension,  that  I 
cunningly  imputed  Fixlein's  journey  more  to  his  desire 
of  knowing  what  was  in  the  will,  than  of  making  his  own 
will  in  presence  of  his  mother.  Every  recovery  is  a 
bringing  back  and  palingenesia  of  our  youth ;  one  loves 
the  Earth  and  those  that  are  on  it  with  a  new  love.  The 
Conrector  could  have  found  in  his  heart  to  take  all  his 
class  by  the  locks,  and  press  them  to  his  breast;  but  he 
only  did  so  to  his  adjutant,  the  Quartaner,  who,  in  the 
first  Letter-box,  was  still  sitting  in  the  rank  of  a  Quin- 
taner.  .  .  . 

His  first  expedition,  after  school-hours,  was  to  the  house 
of  Meister  Steinberger,  where,  without  speaking  a  word, 
he  counted  down  fifty  florins  cash  in  ducats,  on  the  table  : 
"  At  last  I  repay  you,"  said  Fixlein,  "  the  moiety  of  my 
debt,  and  give  you  many  thanks." 

"  Ey,  Herr  Conrector,"  said  the  Quartermaster,  and 
continued  calmly  stuffing  puddings  as  before,  "  in  my  bond 
it  is  said,  payable  at  three  months'  mutual  notice.  How 
could  a  man  like  me  go  on,  else  ?  However,  I  will  change 
you  the  gold-pieces."  Thereupon  he  advised  him  that  it 
might  be  more  judicious  to  take  back  a  florin  or  two,  and 
buy  himself  a  better  hat,  and  whole  shoes.  "  If  you  like," 
added  he,  "  to  get  a  calf-skin  and  half  a  dozen  hare-skins 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  151 

dressed,  they  are  lying  up-stairs."  I  should  tliink,  for  my 
own  part,  that  to  the  reader  it  must  be  as  little  a  matter 
of  indifference  as  it  was  to  the  Butcher,  whether  the  hero 
of  such  a  History  appeared  before  him  with  an  old  tat- 
tered potlid  of  a  hat,  and  a  pump-sucker  and  leg-harness 
pair  of  boots,  or  in  suitable  apparel.  In  short,  before  St. 
John's  day,  the  man  was  dressed  with  taste  and  pomp. 

But  now  came  two  most  peculiaily  important  papers  — 
at  bottom  only  one,  the  petition  for  the  Hukelum  par- 
sonship  —  to  be  elaborated ;  in  regard  to  which   I  feel 

as  if  I  myself  must  assist It   were  a  simple 

turn,  if  now  at  least  the  assembled  public  did  not  pay 
attention. 

In  the  first  place,  the  Conrector  searched  out  and  sorted 
all  the  Consistorial  and  Councillor  quittances,  or  rather 
the  toll-bills  of  the  road-money,  which  he  had  been 
obliged  to  pay  before  the  toll-gates  at  the  Quintusship 
and  Conrectorship  had  been  thrown  open ;  for  the  execu- 
tor of  the  Schadeck  testament  had  to  reimburse  him  the 
whole,  as  his  discharge  would  express  it,  "  to  penny  and 
farthing."  Another  would  have  summed  up  his  post- 
excise  much  more  readily ;  by  merely  looking  what  he 
—  owed  ;  as  these  debt-bills  and  those  toll-bills,  like  par- 
allel passages,  elucidate  and  confirm  each  other.  But  in 
Fixlein's  case,  there  was  a  small  circumstance  of  pecu- 
liarity at  work,  which  I  cannot  explain  till  after  what 
follows. 

It  grieved  him  a  little  that  for  his  two  offices  he  had 
been  obliged  to  pay  and  to  borrow  no  larger  a  sum  than 
135  florins,  41  kreuzers,  and  one  halfpenny.  The  leg- 
acy, it  is  true,  was  to  pass  directly  from  the  hands  of  the 
testamentary  executor  into  those  of  the  Regiments-Quar- 
termaster ;  but  yet  he  could  have  liked  well  had  he  —  for 


152  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

man  is  a  fool  from  the  very  foundation  of  him  —  had 
more  to  pay,  and  t'lierefore  to  inherit.  Tlie  \vhole  Con- 
rectorate  he  had,  by  a  slight  deposit  of  90  florins,  plucked, 
as  it  Avere,  from  the  Wheel  of  Fortune  ;  and  so  small  a 
sum  must  surprise  my  reader ;  but  what  will  he  say,  when 
I  tell  him  that  there  are  countries  where  the  entry-money 
into  school-rooms  is  even  more  moderate  ?  In  Scherau, 
a  Conrector  is  charged  only  88  florins,  and  perhaps  he 
may  have  an  income  triple  of  this  sum.  Not  to  speak 
of  Saxony  (what,  in  truth,  was  to  be  expected  from  the 
cradle  of  the  Reformation,  in  Eeligion  and  Polite  Litera- 
ture), where  a  schoolmaster  and  a  parson  have  nothing  to 
pay,  —  even  in  Baireuth,  for  example,  in  Hof,  the  pro- 
gress of  improvement  has  been  such  that  a  Qiiartus,  —  a 
Quartus,  do  I  say,  —  a  Tertius  —  a  Tertius,  do  I  say,  — 
a  Conrector,  —  at  entrance  on  his  post,  is  not  required  to 
pay  down  more  than  :  — 

Fl.  rheu.  Kr.  rhen. 

30      49    For  taking  the  oaths  at  the  Consist orium. 
4        0    To  the  Syndic  for  the  Presentation. 
2       0    To  the  then  Burgermeister. 
45       7-^  For  the  Government-sanction. 
Total,    81  fl.  56^  kr. 

If  the  printing-charges  of  a  Rector  do  stand  a  little 
higher  in  some  points,  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  a  Tertius, 
Quartus,  &c.,  come  cheaper  from  the  press  than  even  a 
Conrector.  Now,  it  is  clear,  that  in  this  case  a  schoolmas- 
ter can  subsist ;  since,  in  the  course  of  the  very  first  year, 
he  gets  an  overplus  beyond  this  dochnoney  of  his  oflice. 
A  schoolmaster  must,  like  his  scholars,  have  been  advanced 
from  class  to  class,  before  these  his  loans  to  Government, 
together  with  the  interest  for  delay  of  payment,  can  joint- 
ly amount  to  so  much  as  his  yearly  income  in  the  highest 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  153 

class.  Another  thing  in  his  favor  is,  that  our  institutions 
do  not  —  as  those  of  Athens  did  —  prohibit  people  from 
entering  on  office  while  in  debt ;  but  every  man,  with  his 
debt-knapsack  on  his  shoulders,  mounts  up,  step  after 
step,  without  obstruction.  The  Pope,  in  large  benefices, 
appropriates  the  income  of  the  first  year,  under  the  title 
of  Annates,  or  First-Fruits  ;  and  accordingly  he,  in  all 
cases,  bestows  any  large  benefice  on  the  possessor  of  a 
smaller  one,  thereby  to  augment  both  his  own  revenues 
and  those  of  others  ;  but  it  shows,  in  my  opinion,  a  bright 
distinction  between  Popery  and  Lutheranism,  that  the 
Consistoriums  of  the  latter  abstract  from  their  school- 
ministers  and  church-ministers  not  perhaps  above  two 
thirds  of  their  first  yearly  income ;  though  they  too,  hke 
the  Pope,  must  naturally  have  an  eye  to  vacancies. 

It  may  be  that  I  shall  here  come  in  collision  with  the 
Elector  of  Mentz,  when  I  confess,  that,  in  Schmausen's 
Corp.  jur.  pub.  Germ.,  I  have  turned  up  the  Mentz-Im- 
perial-Court-Chancery-tax-ordinance  of  the  6th  January, 
1659,  and  there  investigated  how  much  this  same  Im- 
perial-Court-Chancery demands,  as  contrasted  with  a 
Consistorium.  For  example,  any  man  that  wishes  to  be 
baked  or  sodden  into  a  Poet  Laureate,  has  50  florins  tax- 
dues,  and  20  florins  Chancery-dues,  to  pay  down  ;  where- 
as, for  20  florins  more,  he  might  have  been  made  a  Con- 
rector,  who  is  a  poet  of  this  species,  as  it  were  by  the  by 
and  ex  officio.  The  institution  of  a  Gymnasium  is  per- 
mitted for  1,000  florins ;  an  extraordinary  sum,  with  which 
the  whole  body  of  the  teachers  in  the  instituted  Gymna- 
sium might  with  us  clear  off  the  entry-moneys  of  their 
school-rooms.  Again,  a  Freiherr,  who,  at  any  rate,  often 
enough  grows  old  without  knowing  how,  must  purchase 
the  venia  cetatis  with  200  hard  florins  ;  while,  with  the 


154  LIFE    OF    QUIXTUS    FIXLEIN. 

half  sum,  he  might  have  become  a  schoolmaster,  and  here 
age  would  have  come  of  its  own  accord.  And  a  thousand 
such  things !  They  prove,  however,  that  matters  can  be 
at  no  bad  pass  in  our  Governments  and  Circles,  where 
promotions  are  sold  dearer  to  Folly  than  to  Dihgence, 
and  where  it  costs  more  to  institute  a  school  than  to  serve 
in  one. 

The  remarks  I  made  on  this  subject  to  a  Prince,  as 
well  as  the  remarks  a  Town-syndic  made  on  it  to  myself, 
are  too  remarkable  to  be  omitted  for  mere  dread  of  di- 
gressiveness. 

The  Syndic  —  a  man  of  enlarged  views,  and  of  fiery 
patriotism,  the  warmth  of  which  was  the  more  beneficent 
that  he  collected  all  the  beams  of  it  into  one  focus,  and 
directed  them  to  himself  and  his  family  —  gave  me  (I 
had  perhaps  been  comparing  the  School-bench  and  the 
Scliool-stair  to  the  bench  and  the  ladder,  on  which  people 
ai*e  laid  when  about  to  be  tortured)  the  best  reply :  "•  If 
a  schoolmaster  consume  nothing  but  30  reichsthalers ;  * 
if  he  annually  purchase  manufactured  goods,  according 
as  Political  Economists  have  calculated  for  each  individ- 
ual, namely,  to  the  amount  of  5  reichsthalers  ;  and  no 
more  hundred-weights  of  victual  than  these  assume,  name- 
ly, 10 ;  in  short,  if  he  live  like  a  substantial  wood-cutter, 
then  the  Devil  must  be  in  it  if  he  cannot  yearly  lay  by 
so  much  net  profit  as  shall,  in  the  long  run,  pay  the  in- 
terest of  his  entry  debts." 

The  Syndic  must  have  foiled  to  convince  me  at  that 
time,  since  I  afterwards  told  the  Flachsenfingen  Prince  :  f 

*  So  much,  according  to  Political  Economists,  a  man  yearly  re- 
quires in  Germany. 

t  This  singular  tone  of  my  address  to  a  Prince  can  only  be  excused 
by  the  equally  singular  relation  wherein  the  Biographer  stands  to  the 
Flachsenfingen  Sovereign,  and  which  I  would  willingly  unfold  here 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  155 

"Illustrious  sir,  you  know  not,  but  I  do,  —  not  a  player 
in  your  Theatre  would  act  the  Schoolmaster  in  Engel's 
Prodigal  Son,  three  nights  running,  for  such  a  sum  as 
every  real  Schoolmaster  has  to  take  for  acting  it  all  the 
days  of  the  year.  In  Prussia,  invalids  are  made  School- 
masters ;  with  us.  Schoolmasters  are  made  invalids."  .... 

But  to  our  story !  Fixlein  wrote  out  the  inventory  of 
his  Crown-debts  ;  but  with  quite  a  different  purpose  than 
the  reader  will  guess,  who  has  still  the  Schadeck  testa- 
ment in  his  head.  In  one  word,  he  wanted  to  be  Parson 
of  Hukelum.  To  be  a  clergyman,  and  in  the  place 
where  his  cradle  stood,  and  all  the  little  gardens  of  his 
childhood,  his  mother  also,  and  the  grove  of  betrothment, 
—  this  was  an  open  gate  into  a  New  Jerusalem,  suppos- 
ing even  that  the  living  had  been  nothing  but  a  meagre 
penitentiary.  The  main  point  was,  he  might  marry,  if 
he  were  appointed.  For,  in  the  capacity  of  lank  Con- 
rector,  supported  only  by  the  strengthening-girth  of  his 
waistcoat,  and  with  emoluments  whereby  scarcely  the 
purchase-money  of  a  —  purse  was  to  be  come  at ;  in  this 
way  he  was  more  like  collecting  wick  and  tallow  for  his 
burial  torch  than  for  his  bridal  one. 

For  the  Schoolmaster  class  are,  in  well-ordered  states, 
as  little  permitted  to  marry  as  the  soldiery.  In  Con- 
ringius  de  Antiquitatibus  Academicis,  where  in  every 
leaf  it  is  proved  that  all  cloisters  were  originally  schools, 
I  hit  upon  the  reason.  Our  schools  are  now  cloisters, 
and  consequently  we  endeavor  to  maintain  in  our  teach- 
ers at  least  an  imitation  of  the  Three  Monastic  Vows. 

were  it  not  that,  in  my  Book,  which,  under  the  title  of  Dog-post-days, 
I  mean  to  give  to  the  world  at  Easter-fair,  1795,  I  hoped  to  expound 
the  matter  to  universal  satisfaction. 


156  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

The  Vow  of  Obedience  might  perhaps  be  sufficiently 
enforced  by  School-Inspectors  ;  but  the  second  vow,  that 
of  Celibacy,  would  be  more  hard  of  attainment,  were  it 
not  that,  by  one  of  the  best  political  arrangements,  the 
third  vow,  I  mean  a  beautiful  equality  in  Poverty,  is  so 
admirably  attended  to,  that  no  man  who  has  made  it  needs 
any  further  testimonium  paupertatis  ;  —  and  now  let  this 
man,  if  he  likes,  lay  hold  of  a  matrimonial  half,  when  of 
the  two  halves  each  has  a  whole  stomach,  and  nothing  for 
it  but  half-coins  and  half-beer !  .  .  .  . 

I  know  well,  millions  of  my  readers  would  themselves 
compose  this  Petition  for  the  Conrector,  and  ride  with 
it  to  Schadeck  to  his  Lordship,  that  so  the  poor  rogue 
might  get  the  sheepfold,  with  the  annexed  wedding- 
mansion  ;  for  they  see  clearly  enough,  that  directly  there- 
after one  of  the  best  Letter-Boxes  would  be  written  that 
ever  came  from  such  a  repository. 

Fixlein's  Petition  was  particularly  good  and  striking ; 
it  submitted  to  the  Rittmeister  four  grounds  of  prefer- 
ence :  1.  "  He  was  a  native  of  the  parish ;  his  parents 
and  ancestors  had  already  done  Hukelum  service  ;  there- 
fore he  prayed,"  &c. 

2.  "  The  here  documented  official  debts  of  135  florins, 
41  kreuzers,  and  one  halfpenny,  the  cancelling  of  which 
a  never-to-be-forgotten  testament  secured  him,  he  himself 
could  clear,  in  case  he  obtained  the  living,  and  so  hereby 
give  up  his  claim  to  the  legacy,"  &c. 

Voluntary  Note  hy  me.  It  is  plain  he  means  to  bribe 
his  Godfather,  whom  the  lady's  testament  has  put  into  a 
fume.  But,  gentle  reader,  blame  not  without  mercy  a 
poor,  oppressed,  heavy-laden  school-man  and  school-horse 
for  an  indelicate  insinuation,  which  truly  was  never  mine. 
Consider,  Fixlein  knew  that  the  Rittmeister  was  a  cor- 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  157 

morant  towards  the  poor,  as  he  was  a  squanderer  towards 
the  rich.  It  may  be,  too,  the  Conrector  might  once  or 
twice  have  heard,  in  the  Law  Courts,  of  patrons  by  whom 
not  indeed  the  church  and  churchyard  —  though  these 
things  are  articles  of  commerce  in  England  —  so  much  as 
the  true  management  of  them,  had  been  sold,  or  rather 
farmed  to  farming-candidates.  I  know  from  Lange,*  that 
the  Church  must  support  its  patron,  when  he  has  nothing 
to  live  upon  ;  and  might  not  a  nobleman,  before  he  actu- 
ally began  begging,  be  justified  in  taking  a  little  advance, 
a  fore-payment  of  his  alimentary  moneys,  from  the  hands 
of  his  pulpit-farmer  ?  — 

3.  "  He  had  lately  betrothed  himself  with  Fraulein  von 
Thiennette,  and  given  her  a  piece  of  gold,  as  marriage- 
pledge  ;  and  could  therefore  wed  the  said  Fraulein,  were 
he  once  provided  for,"  &c. 

Voluntary  Note  hy  me.  I  hold  this  ground  to  be  the 
strongest  in  the  whole  Petition.  In  the  eyes  of  Herr 
von  Aufhammer,  Thiennette's  genealogical  tree  was  long 
since  stubbed,  disleaved,  worm-eaten,  and  full  of  mille- 
pedes ;  she  was  his  OEconoma,  his  Castle-Stewardess,  and 
Legatess  a  Latere  for  his  domestics  ;  and  with  her  pre- 
tensions for  an  alms-coffer,  was  threatening  in  the  end  to 
become  a  burden  to  him.  His  indignant  wish  that  she 
had  been  provided  for  with  Fixlein's  legacy  might  now 
be  fulfilled.  In  a  word,  if  Fixlein  become  Parson,  he 
will  have  the  third  ground  to  thank  for  it ;  not  at  all  the 
mad  fourth 

4.  "  He  had  learned  with  sorrow,  that  the  name  of  his 
Shock,  which  he  had  purchased  from  an  Emigrant  at 
Leipzig,  meant  Egidius  in  German ;  and  that  the  dog  had 
drawn  upon  him  the  displeasure  of  his  Lordship.     Far 

*  His  Clerical  Law ^  p.  551. 


158  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

be  it  from  him  so  to  designate  the  Shock  in  future  ;  but 
he  would  take  it  as  a  special  grace,  if  for  the  dog,  which 
he  at  present  called  without  any  name,  his  Lordship 
would  be  pleased  to  appoint  one  himself." 

My  Voluntary  Note.  The  dog  then,  it  seems,  to  which 
the  nobleman  has  hitherto  been  godfather,  is  to  receive  its 
name  a  second  time  from  him  !  —  But  how  can  the  fam- 
ishing gardener's  son,  whose  career  never  mounted  higher 
than  from  the  school-bench  to  tlie  school-chair,  and  who 
never  spoke  with  polished  ladies,  except  singing,  namely 
in  the  church,  how  can  he  be  expected,  in  fingering  such 
a  string,  to  educe  from  it  any  finer  tone  than  the  pedantic 
one  ?  And  yet  the  source  of  it  lies  deeper ;  not  tlie  con- 
tracted situation,  but  the  contracted  eye,  not  a  favorite 
science,  but  a  narrow  plebeian  soul,  makes  us  pedantic,  — 
a  soul  that  cannot  measure  and  separate  the  concentric 
circles  of  human  knowledge  and  activity,  that  confounds 
the  focus  of  universal  human  life,  by  reason  of  the  focal 
distance,  with  every  two  or  three  converging  rays  ;  and 

that  cannot  see  all,  and  tolerate  all In  short,  the 

true  Pedant  is  the  Intolerant. 

The  Conrector  wrote  out  his  Petition  splendidly  in  five 
propitious  evenings ;  employed  a  peculiar  ink  for  the  pur- 
pose ;  worked  not  indeed  so  long  over  it  as  the  stupid 
Manucius  over  a  Latin  letter,  namely,  some  months,  if 
Scioppius's  word  is  to  be  taken ;  still  less  so  long  as 
another  scholar  at  a  Latin  epistle,  who  —  truly  we  have 
nothinsj  but  Morhof's  word  for  it  —  hatched  it  durins;  four 
whole  months  ;  inserting  his  variations,  adjectives,  ^e^i, 
with  the  authorities  for  his  phrases,  accurately  marked 
between  the  lines.  Fixlein  possessed  a  more  thorough- 
going genius,  and  had  completely  mastered   the  whole 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  1 59 

enterprise  in  sixteen  days.  While  sealing,  he  thought,  as 
we  all  do,  how  this  cover  was  the  seed-husk  of  a  great 
entire  Future,  the  rind  of  many  sweet  or  bitter  fruits,  the 
swathing  of  his  whole  after  life. 

Heaven  bless  his  cover  ;  but  I  let  you  throw  me  from 
the  Tower  of  Babel,  if  he  get  the  parsonage  ;  can't  you 
see,  then,  that  Auf hammer's  hands  are  tied  ?  In  spite  of 
all  his  other  faults,  or  even  because  of  them,  he  will  stand 
like  iron  by  his  word,  which  he  has  given  so  long  ago  to 
the  Subrector.  It  were  another  matter  had  he  been  resi- 
dent at  Court ;  for  there,  where  old  German  manners  still 
are,  no  promise  is  kept ;  for  as,  according  to  Moser,  the 
Ancient  Germans  kept  only  such  promises  as  they  made 
in  the  forenoon  (in  the  afternoon  they  were  all  dead- 
drunk), —  so  the  Court  Germans  likewise  keep  no  after- 
noon promise  ;  forenoon  ones  they  would  keep  if  they 
made  any,  which,  however,  cannot  possibly  happen,  as  at 
those  hours  they  are  —  sleeping. 


'^^^><2?^^^ 


SEVENTH    LETTER-BOX 


Sermon.  —  School-Exhibition.  —  Splendid  Mistake. 


HE  Conrector  received  his  135  florins,  43 
kreuzers,  one  halfpenny  Prankish ;  but  no 
answer ;  the  dog  remained  without  name,  his 
master  without  parsonage.  Meanwhile  the 
summer  passed  away ;  and  the  Dragoon  Rittmeister  had 
yet  drawn  out  no  pike  from  the  Candidate  hreeding-pond, 
and  thrown  him  into  the  feeding-pond  of  the  Hukelum 
parsonage.  It  gratified  him  to  be  behung  with  prayers 
like  a  Spanish  guardian  Saint ;  and  he  postponed  (though 
determined  to  prefer  the  Subrector)  granting  any  one  pe- 
tition, till  he  had  seven-and-thirty  dyers',  button-makers', 
tinsmiths'  sons,  whose  petitions  he  could  at  the  same  time 
refuse.  Grudge  not  him  of  Auf  hammer  this  outlength- 
ening  of  his  electorial  power !  He  knows  the  privileges 
of  rank  ;  feels  that  a  nobleman  is  like  Timoleon,  who 
gained  his  greatest  victories  on  his  birthday,  and  had 
nothing  more  to  do  than  name  some  squiress,  countess,  or 
the  like,  as  his  mother.  A  man,  however,  who  has  been 
exalted  to  the  Peerage,  while  still  a  foetus,  may  with  more 
propriety  be  likened  to  the  spinner,  which,  contrariwise 
to  all  other  insects,  passes  from  the  chrysalis  state,  and 
becomes  a  perfect  insect  in  its  mother's  womb.  — 

But  to  proceed  !     Pixlein  was  at  present  not  without 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  l6l 

cash.  It  will  be  the  same  as  if  I  made  a  present  of  it 
to  the  reader,  when  I  reveal  to  him,  that  of  the  legacy, 
which  was  clearing  off  old  scores,  he  had  still  35  florins 
left  to  himself,  as  allodium  and  pocket-money,  wherewith 
he  might  purchase  whatsoever  seemed  good  to  him.  And 
how  came  he  by  so  large  a  sum,  by  so  considerable  a  com- 
petence ?  Simply  by  this  means  ;  every  time  he  changed 
a  piece  of  gold,  and  especially  at  every  payment  he  re- 
ceived, it  had  been  his  custom  to  throw  in,  blindly  at 
random,  two,  three,  or  four  small  coins,  among  the  papers 
of  his  trunk.  His  purpose  was  to  astonish  himself  one 
day,  when  he  summed  up  and  took  possession  of  this 
sleeping  capital.  And,  by  Heaven  !  he  reached  it  too, 
when,  on  mounting  the  throne  of  his  Conrectorate,  he 
drew  out  these  funds  from  his  papers,  and  applied  them 
to  the  coronation  charges.  For  the  present,  he  sowed 
them  in  again  among  his  waste  letters.  Foolish  Fixlein ! 
I  mean,  had  he  not  luckily  exposed  his  legacy  to  jeopar- 
dy, having  offered  it  as  bounty-money  and  luckpenny  to 
the  patron,  this  false  clutch  of  his  at  the  knocker  of  the 
Hukelum  church  door,  would  certainly  have  vexed  him  ; 
but  now,  if  he  had  missed  the  knocker,  he  had  the  luck- 
penny  again,  and  could  be  merry. 

I  now  advance  a  little  way  in  his  History,  and  hit, 
in  the  rock  of  his  Life,  upon  so  fine  a  vein  of  silver,  I 
mean  upon  so  fine  a  day,  that  I  must  (I  believe)  content 
myself  even  in  regard  to  the  twenty-third  of  Trinity-term, 
when  he  preached  a  vacation  sermon  in  his  dear  native 
village,  with  a  brief  transitory  notice. 

In  itself  the  sermon  was  good  and  glorious  ;  and  the 
day  a  rich  day  of  pleasure ;  but  I  should  really  need  to 
have  more  hours  at  my  disposal  than  I  can  steal  from 
May,  in  which  I  am  at  present  living  and  writing ;  and 


l62  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

more  strength  than  wandering  through  this  fine  weather 
has  left  me  for  landscape  pictures  of  the  same,  before  I 
could  attempt,  with  any  well-founded  hope,  to  draw  out  a 
mathematical  estimate  of  the  length  and  thickness,  and 
the  vibrations  and  accordant  relations  to  each  other,  of 
the  various  strings,  which  combined  together  to  form  for 
his  heart  a  Music  of  the  Spheres,  on  this  day  of  Trinity- 
term,  though  such  a  thing  would  please  myself  as  much 

as  another Do  not  ask  me  !     In  my  opinion, 

when  a  man  preaches  on  Sunday,  before  all  the  peasants, 
who  had  carried  him  in  their  arms  when  a  gardener's 
boy ;  further,  before  his  mother,  who  is  leading  off  her 
tears  through  the  conduit  of  her  satin  muff;  further,  be- 
fore his  Lordship,  whom  he  can  positively  command  to 
be  blessed ;  and  finally  before  his  muslin  bride,  who  is 
already  blessed,  and  changing  almost  into  stone,  to  find 
that  the  same  lips  can  both  kiss  and  preach  ;  in  my  opin- 
ion, I  say,  when  a  man  effects  all  this,  he  has  some  right 
to  require  of  any  Biographer  who  would  paint  his  situa- 
tion, that  he  —  hold  his  jaw  ;  and  of  the  reader  who 
would  sympathize  with  it,  that  he  open  his,  and  preach 
himself. 

But  what  I  must  ex  officio  depict,  is  the  day  to  which 
this  Sunday  was  but  the  prelude,  the  vigil,  and  the  whet ; 
I  mean  the  prelude,  the  vigil,  and  the  whet  to  the  Martini 
Actus,  or  Martinmas  Exhibition  of  his  school.  On  Sun- 
day was  the  sermon,  on  Wednesday  the  Actus,  on  Tues- 
day the  Rehearsal.  This  Tuesday  shall  now  be  delineated 
to  the  universe. 

I  count  upon  it  that  I  shall  not  be  read  by  mere  people 
of  the  world  alone,  to  whom  a  School- Actus  cannot  truly 
appear  much  better,  or  more  interesting,  than  some  In- 
vestiture of  a  Bishop,  or  the  opera  seria  of  Frankfort 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  163 

Coronation;  but  that  I  likewise  have  people  before  me, 
who  have  been  at  schools,  and  who  know  how  the  School- 
Drama  of  an  Actus  and  the  stage-manager,  and  the  play- 
bill (the  programme)  thereof  are  to  be  estimated,  still 
without  overrating  their  importance. 

Before  proceeding  to  the  Rehearsal  of  the  Martini  Ac- 
tus, I  impose  upon  myself,  as  dramaturgist  of  the  play, 
the  duty,  if  not  of  extracting,  at  least  of  recording,  the 
Conrector's  Letter  of  Invitation.  In  this  composition  he 
said  many  things  ;  and  (what  an  author  likes  so  well) 
made  proposals  rather  than  reproaches ;  interrogatively 
reminding  the  public,  whether,  in  regard  to  the  well-known 
head-breakages  of  Priscian  on  the  part  of  the  Magnates 
in  Pest  and  Poland,  our  school-houses  w^ere  not  the  best 
quarantine  and  lazar-houses  to  protect  us  against  infectious 
barbarisms  ?  Moreover,  he  defended  in  schools  what 
could  be  defended  (and  nothing  in  the  world  is  sweeter  or 
easier  than  a  defence)  ;  and  said.  Schoolmasters,  who, 
not  quite  justifiably,  like  certain  Courts,  spoke  nothing, 
and  let  nothing  be  spoken  to  them,  but  Latin,  might  plead 
the  Romans  in  excuse,  whose  subjects,  and  whose  kings, 
at  least  in  their  epistles  and  public  transactions,  were 
obliged  to  make  use  of  the  Latin  tongue.  He  wondered 
why  only  our  Greek,  and  not  also  our  Latin  Grammars, 
w^ere  composed  in  Latin,  and  put  the  pregnant  question, 
whether  the  Romans,  when  they  taught  their  little  chil- 
dren the  Latin  tongue,  did  it  in  any  other  than  in  this 
same.  Thereupon  he  went  over  to  the  Actus,  and  said 
what  follows,  in  his  own  words :  — 

"  I  am  minded  to  prove,  in  a  subsequent  Invitation, 
that  everything  which  can  be  said  or  known  about  the 
great  founder  of  the  Reformation,  the  subject  of  our  pres- 
ent Martini  Prolusions,  has  been  long  ago  exhausted,  as 


164  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

well  by  Seckendorf  as  others.  In  fact,  with  regard  to 
Luther's  personalities,  his  table-talk,  incomes,  journeys, 
clothes,  and  so  forth,  there  can  now  nothing  new  be 
brought  forward,  if  at  the  same  time  it  is  to  be  true. 
Nevertheless,  the  field  of  the  Reformation  history  is,  to 
speak  in  a  figure,  by  no  means  Avholly  cultivated ;  and  it 
does  appear  to  me  as  if  the  inquirer  even  of  the  present 
day  might  in  vain  look  about  for  correct  intelligence  re- 
specting the  children,  grandchildren,  and  children's  chil- 
dren, down  to  our  own  times,  of  this  great  Reformer ;  all 
of  whom,  however,  appertain,  in  a  more  remote  degree,  to 
the  Reformation  history,  as  he  himself  in  a  nearer.  Thou 
shalt  not  perhaps  be  threshing,  said  I  to  myself,  altogether 
empty  straw,  if,  according  to  thy  small  ability,  thou  bring 
forward  and  cultivate  this  neglected  branch  of  History. 
And  so  have  I  ventured,  with  the  last  male  descendant  of 
Luther,  namely,  with  the  Advocate  Martin  Gottlob  Lu- 
ther, who  practised  in  Dresden,  and  deceased  there  in 
1759,  to  make  a  beginning  of  a  more  special  Reformation 
history.  My  feeble  attempt,  in  regard  to  this  Reforma- 
tionary  Advocate,  will  be  sufficiently  rewarded,  should  it 
excite  to  better  works  on  the  subject ;  however,  the  little 
which  I  have  succeeded  in  digging  up  and  collecting  with 
regard  to  him  I  here  submissively,  obediently,  and  hum- 
bly request  all  friends  and  patrons  of  the  Flachsenfingen 
Gymnasium  to  listen  to,  on  the  14th  of  November,  from 
the  mouths  of  six  well-conditioned  perorators.  In  the 
first  place,  shall 

"  Gottlieh  Spiesglass,  a  Flachsenfinger,  endeavor  to 
show,  in  a  Latin  oration,  that  Martin  Gottlob  Luther 
was  certainly  descended  of  the  Luther  family.  After 
him  strives 

"  Friedrich  Christian  Krahhler,  from  Hukelum,  in  Ger- 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  165 

man  prose,  to  appreciate  the  influence  which  Martin  Gott- 
lob  Luther  exercised  on  the  then  existing  Reformation ; 
whereupon,  after  him,  will 

"  Daniel  Lorenz  Stenzinger  deliver,  in  Latin  verse,  an 
account  of  Martin  Gottlob  Luther's  lawsuits  ;  embracing 
the  probable  merits  of  Advocates  generally,  in  regard  to 
the  Reformation.     Which  then  will  give  opportunity  to 

^^  Nikol  Tobias  PJizman  to  come  forward  in  French, 
and  recount  the  most  important  circumstances  of  Martin 
Gottlob  Luther's  school-years,  university-life,  and  riper 
ao:e.     And  now,  when 

"  Andreas  Eintarm  shall  have  endeavored,  in  German 
verse,  to  apologize  for  the  possible  failings  of  this  repre- 
sentative of  the  great  Luther,  will 

"  Justus  Strohel,  in  Latin  verse  according  to  ability, 
sing  his  uprightness  and  integrity  in  the  Advocate  profes- 
sion ;  whereafter  I  myself  shall  mount  the  cathedra,  and 
most  humbly  thank  all  the  patrons  of  the  Flachsenfingen 
School,  and  then  further  bring  forward  those  portions  in 
the  life  of  this  remarkable  man,  of  which  we  yet  know 
absolutely  nothing,  they  being  spared,  Deo  volente,  for  the 
speakers  of  the  next  Martini  Actus.'' 


The  day  before  the  Actus  oflfered  as  it  were  the  proof- 
shot  and  sample-sheet  of  the  Wednesday.  Persons  who 
on  account  of  dress  could  not  be  present  at  the  great 
school-festival,  especially  ladies,  made  their  appearance 
on  Tuesday,  during  the  six  proof-orations.  No  one  can 
be  readier  than  I  to  subordinate  the  proof-Actus  to  the 
Wednesday-Actus  ;  and  I  do  anything  but  need  being 
stimulated  suitably  to  estimate  the  solemn  feast  of  a 
School ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  I  am  equally  convinced 


l66  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

that  no  one,  who  did  not  go  to  the  real  Actus  of  "Wednes- 
day, could  possibly  figure  anything  more  splendid  than 
the  proof-day  preceding ;  because  he  could  have  no  object 
wherewith  to  compare  the  pomp  in  which  the  Primate  of 
the  festival  drove  in  with  his  triumphal  chariot  and  six 
—  to  call  the  six  brethren-speakers  coach-horses  —  next 
morning  in  presence  of  ladies  and  Councillor  gentleman. 
Smile  away,  Fixlein,  at  this  astonishment  over  thy  to- 
day's Ovation,  which  is  leading  on  to-morrow's  Triumph  ; 
on  thy  dissolving  countenance  quivers  happy  Self,  feeding 
on  these  incense-fumes  ;  but  a  vanity  like  thine,  and  that 
only,  which  enjoys  without  comparing  or  despising,  can 
one  tolerate,  will  one  foster.  But  what  flowed  over  all 
his  heart,  like  a  melting  sunbeam  over  wax,  was  his 
mother,  who  after  much  persuasion  had  ventured  in  her 
Sunday's  clothes  humbly  to  place  herself  quite  low  down, 
beside  the  door  of  the  Prima  class-room.  It  were  diffi- 
cult to  say  who  is  happier,  the  mother,  beholding  how  he 
whom  she  has  borne  under  her  heart  can  direct  such 
noble  young  gentlemen,  and  hearing  how  he  along  with 
them  can  talk  of  these  really  high  things  and  understand 
them  too ;  —  or  the  son,  who,  like  some  of  the  heroes  of 
Antiquity,  has  the^  felicity  of  triumphing  in  the  lifetime 
of  his  mother.  I  have  never  in  my  writings  or  doings 
cast  a  stone  upon  the  late  Burchardt  Grossmann,  who, 
under  the  initial  letters  of  the  stanzas  in  his  song  "  Brich 
an,  du  liehe  Morgenrothe,''  inserted  the  letters  of  his  own 
name  ;  and  still  less  have  I  ever  censured  any  poor  herb- 
woman  for  smoothinoj  out  her  winding-sheet,  while  still 
living,  and  making  herself  one  twelfth  of  a  dozen  of 
grave-shifts.  Nor  do  I  regard  the  man  as  wise  —  though 
indeed  as  very  clever  and  pedantic  —  who  can  fret  his 
gall-bladder  full  because  every  one  of  us  leaf-miners  views 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  167 

the  leaf  whereon  he  is  mining  as  a  park-garden,  as  a  fifth 
Quarter  of  the  World  (so  near  and  rich  is  it)  ;  the  leaf- 
pores  as  so  manj  Valleys  of  Tempe,  the  leaf-skeleton  as 
a  Liberty-tree,  a  Bread-tree,  and  Life-tree,  and  the  dew- 
drops  as  the  Ocean.  We  poor  day-moths,  evening-moths, 
and  night-moths  fall  universally  into  the  same  error,  only 
on  different  leaves  ;  and  whosoever  (as  I  do)  laughs  at  the 
important  airs  with  which  the  schoolmaster  issues  his  pro- 
grammes,' the  dramaturgist  his  playbills,  the  classical  varia- 
tion-alms-gatherer his  alphabetic  letters,  —  does  it,  if  he 
is  wise  (as  is  the  case  here),  with  the  consciousness  of  his 
own  similar' foWj  ;  and  laughs,  in  regard  to  his  neighbor, 
at  nothing  but  mankind  and  himself. 

The  mother  was  not  to  be  detained  ;  she  must  off,  this 
very  night,  to  Hukelum,  to  give  the  Fraulein  Thiennette 
at  least  some  tidings  of -this  glorious  business. — 

And  now^  the  World  will  bet  a  hundred  to  one,  that  I 
forthwith  take  biographical  wax,  and  emboss  such  a  wax- 
figure  cabinet  of  the  Actus  itself  as  shall  be  single  of  its 
kind. 

But  on  Wednesday  morning,  while  the  hope-intoxicated 
Conrector  was  just  about  putting  on  his  fine  raiment, 
something  knocked.  —  — 

It  was  the  well-known  servant  of  the  Rittmeister,  car- 
rying the  Hukelum  Presentation  for  the  Subrector  Fiichs- 
lein  in  his  pocket.  To  the  last-named  gentleman  he  had 
been  sent  with  this  call  to  the  parsonage ;  but  he  had  dis- 
tinguished ill  betwixt  Sub  and  Corrector  ;  and  had  besides 
his  own  good  reasons  for  directing  his  steps  to  the  latter ; 
for  he  thought,  "  Who  can  it  be  that  gets  it,  but  the  par- 
son that  preached  last  Sunday,  and  that  comes  from  the 
village,  and  is  engaged  to  our  Fraulein  Thiennette,  and  to 
whom  I  brought  a  clock  and  a  roll  of  ducats  already  ?  " 


l68  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

That  his  Lordship  could  pass  over  his  own  godson  never 
entered  the  man's  head. 

Fixlein  read  the  address  of  the  Appointment :  "  To  the 
Reverend  the  Parson  Fixlein  of  Ilukelum."  He  natur- 
ally enough  made  the  same  mistake  as  the  lackey  ;  and 
broke  up  the  Presentation  as  his  own  ;  and  finding  more- 
over in  the  body  of  the  paper  no  special  mention  of  per- 
sons, but  only  of  a  Schul-unterhefehlshaber,  or  School- 
undergovernor  (instead  of  Subrector),  he  could  not  but 
persist  in  his  error. 

Before  I  properly  explain  why  the  Rittmeister's  Law- 
yer, the  framer  of  the  Presentation,  had  so  designated  a 
Subrector  —  we  two,  the  reader  and  myself,  will  keep  an 
eye  for  a  moment  on  Fixlein's  joyful  salutations  —  on  his 
gratefully-streaming  eyes  —  on  his  full  hands  so  laden 
with  bounty  —  on  the  present  of  two  ducats,  which  he 
drops  into  the  hands  of  the  mitre-bearer,  as  willingly  as 
he  will  soon  drop  his  own  pedagogic  office.  Could  he  tell 
what  to  think  (of  the  Rittmeister),  or  to  write  (to  the 
same),  or  to  table  (for  the  lackey)  ?  Did  he  not  ask 
tidings  of  the  noble  health  of  his  benefactor  over  and 
over,  though  the  servant  answered  him  with  all  distinct- 
ness at  the  very  first  ?  And  was  not  this  same  man, 
who  belonged  to  the  nose-upturning,  shoulder-shrugging, 
shoulder-knotted,  toad-eating  species  of  men,  at  last  so 
moved  by  the  joy  which  he  had  imparted,  that  he  deter- 
mined, on  the  spot,  to  bestow  his  presence  on  the  new 
clergyman's  School- Actus,  though  no  person  of  quality 
whatever  was  to  be  there?  Fixlein,  in  the  first  place, 
sealed  his  letter  of  thanks  ;  and  courteously  invited  this 
messenger  of  good  news  to  visit  him  frequently  in  the 
Parsonage ;  and  to  call  this  evening,  in  passing,  at  his 
mother's,  and  give  her  a  lecture  for  not  staying  last  night, 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  169 

when   she   might  have  seen  the    Presentation  from  his 
Lordship  arrive  to-day. 

The  lackey  being  gone,  Fixlein  for  joy  began  to  grow 
sceptical  —  and  timorous  (wherefore,  to  prevent  filching, 
he  stowed  his  Presentation  securely  in  his  coffer,  under 
keeping  of  two  padlocks)  ;  and  devout  and  softened,  since 
he  thanked  God  without  scruple  for  all  good  that  hap- 
pened to  him,  and  never  wrote  this  Eternal  Name  but  in 
pulpit  characters,  and  with  colored  ink  ;  as  the  Jewish 
copyists  never  wrote  it  except  ornamental  letters  and 
when  newly  washed  ;  *  —  and  deaf  also  did  the  parson 
grow,  so  that  he  scarcely  heard  the  soft  wooing-hour 
of  the  Actus  —  for  a  still  softer  one  beside  Thiennette, 
with  its  rose-bushes  and  rose-honey,  would  not  leave  his 
thoughts.  He  who  of  old,  when  Fortune  made  a  wry 
face  at  him,  was  wont,  like  children  in  their  sport  at  one 
another,  to  laugh  at  her  so  long  till  she  herself  was  obliged 
to  begin  smiling  —  he  was  now  flying  as  on  a  huge  see- 
saw higher  and  higher,  quicker  and  quicker  aloft. 

But  before  the  Actus,  let  us  examine  the  Schadeck 
Lawyer.  Fixlein  instead  of  Fiichslein  f  he  had  written 
from  uncertainty  about  the  spelling  of  the  name ;  the 
more  naturally  as  in  transcribing  the  Rittmeisterinn's  will 
the  former  had  occurred  so  often.  Von,  this  triumphal 
arch,  he  durst  not  set  up  before  FUchslein's  new  name, 
because  Aufhammer  forbade  it,  considering  Hans  Fiichs- 
lein as  a  mushroom,  who  had  no  right  to  vons  and  titles  of 
nobility,  for  all  his  patents.  In  fine,  the  Presentation- 
writer  was  possessed  with  Campe's  %  whim  of  Germaniz- 

*  Eiclihorn's  Einleiiung  ins  A.  T.  (Introduction  to  the  Old  Testa- 
ment),  Vol.  II. 

t  Both  have  the  same  sound.  Fiichslein  means  Foxling,  Fox- 
whelp.  —  Ed. 

J  Campe,  a  German  philologist,  who,  along  with  several  others  of 
8 


I70  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

iiig  everything,  minding  little  though  when  Germanized  it 
should  cease  to  be  intelligible ;  —  as  if  a  word  needed  any 
better  act  of  naturalization  than  that  which  universal  un- 
intelligibility  imparts  to  it.  In  itself  it  is  the  same  —  the 
rather  as  all  languages,  like  all  men,  are  cognate,  inter- 
married and  intermixed  —  whether  a  word  was  invented 
by  a  savage  or  a  foreigner  ;  whether  it  grew  up  like  moss 
amid  the  German  forests,  or  like  street-grass,  in  the  pave- 
ment of  the  Roman  Forum.  The  Lawyer,  on  the  other 
hand,  contended  that  it  was  different ;  and  accordingly  he 
hid  not  from  any  of  his  clients  that  Tagefarth  (Day-turn) 
meant  Term,  and  that  Appealing  was  Bernfen  (Becalling). 
On  this  principle,  he  dressed  the  word  Suhrector  in  the 
new  livery  of  School-under  governor.  And  this  version 
further  converted  the  Schoolmaster  into  Parson  ;  to  such  a 
degree  does  our  civic  fortune  —  not  our  personal  well-be- 
ing, which  supports  itself  on  our  own  internal  soil  and 
resources  —  grow  merely  on  the  drift-mould  o^  accidents, 
connections,  acquaintances,  and  Heaven  or  the  Devil 
knows  what !  — 

By  the  by,  from  a  Lawyer,  at  the  same  time  a  Coun- 
try Judge,  I  should  certainly  have  looked  for  more  sense ; 
I  stiould  (I  may  be  mistaken)  have  presumed  he  knew 
that  the  Acts,  or  Reports,  which  in  former  times  (see 
Hoffmann's  German  or  un- German  Laiv-practice)  were 
written  m  Latin,  as  before  the  times  of  Joseph  the  Hun- 

that  class,  has  really  proposed,  as  represented  in  the  text,  to  substi- 
tute for  all  Greek  or  Latin  derivatives  corresponding  German  terms  of 
the  like  impoi-t  Geographrj^yvhXch  may  be  Erdbeschreibung  (Earth- 
description),  was  thenceforth  to  be  nothing  else;  a  Geometer  hecaxxxQ 
an  Eai'ih-ineasurer,  &c.,  &:c.  School-under  governor,  instead  of  Subrectoi', 
is  by  no  means  the  happiest  example  of  the  system,  and  seems  due 
rather  to  the  Schadeck  Lawyer  than  to  Campe,  whom  our  Autlior  has 
elsewhere  more  than  once  eulogized  for  his  project  in  similar  style.  —  . 
Ed. 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  171 

garian,  —  are  now,  if  wc  may  say  so  without  offence,  per- 
haps written  fully  more  in  the  German  dialect  than  in 
the  Latin  ;  and  in  support  of  this  opinion,  I  can  point  to 
whole  lines  of  German  language  to  be  found  in  these 
Imperial-Court-Confessions.  However,  I  will  not  believe 
that  the  Jurist  is  endeavoring,  because  Imhofer  declares 
the  Roman  tongue  to  be  the  mother  tongue  in  the  other 
world,  to  disengage  himself  from  a  language,  by  means 
of  which,  like  the  Roman  Eagle,  or  later,  like  the  Roman 
Fish-heron  (Pope),  he  has  clutched  such  abundant  booty 
in  his  talons.  —  — 

Toll,  toll  your  bell  for  the  Actus ;  stream  in,  in  to  the 
ceremony;  who  cares  for  it?  Neither  I  nor  the  Ex- 
Conrector.  The  six  pygmy  Ciceros  will  in  vain  set  forth 
before  us  in  sumptuous  dress  their  thoughts  and  bodies. 
The  draught-wind  of  Chance  has  blown  away  from  the 
Actus  its  powder-nimbus  of  glory;  and  the  Conrector 
that  was  has  discovered  how  small  a  matter  a  cathedra 
is,  and  how  great  a  one  a  pulpit.  "I  should  not  have 
thought,"  thought  he  now,  "when  I  became  Conrector, 
that  there  could  be  anything  grander,  I  mean  a  parson." 
Man,  behind  his  everlasting  blind,  which  he  only  colors 
differently,  and  makes  no  thinner,  carries  his  pride  with 
him  from  one  step  to  another;  and  on  the  higher  step, 
blames  only  the  pride  of  the  lower. 

The  best  of  the  Actus  was,  that  the  Regiments-Quar- 
termaster and  Master  Butcher,  Steinberg,  attended  there, 
embaled  in  a  long  woollen  shag.  During  the  solemnity, 
the  Subrector  Hans  von  Fuchslein  cast  several  gratified 
and  inquiring  glances  on  the  Schadeck  servant,  who  did 
not  once  look  at  him.  Hans  would  have  staked  his  head, 
that,  after  the  Actus,  the  fellow  would  wait  upon  him. 
When  at  last  the  sextuple  cockerel-brood  had  on  their 


172  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

dunghill  done  crowing,  that  is  to  say,  had  perorated,  the 
scholastic  cocker,  over  whom  a  higher  banner  was  now 
waving,  himself  came  upon  the  stage ;  and  delivered 
to  the  School-Inspectorships,  to  the  Subrectorship,  to  the 
Guardianship,  and  the  lackeyship,  his  most  grateful  thanks 
for  their  attendance  ;  shortly,  announcing  to  them  at  the 
same  time,  "  that  Providence  had  now  called  him  from 
his  post  to  another  ;  and  committed  to  him,  unworthy  as 
he  was,  the  cure  of  souls  in  the  Hukelum  parish,  as  well 
as  in  the  Schadeck  chapel  of  ease." 

This  little  address,  to  appearance,  wellnigh  blew  up  the 
then  Subrector  Hans  von  Fuchslein  from  his  chair ;  and 
his  face  looked  of  a  mingled  color,  like  red  bole,  green 
chalk,  tinsel-yellow,  and  vomissement  di  la  reine. 

The  tall  Quartermaster  erected  himself  considerably  in 
his  shag,  and  hummed  loud  enough  in  happy  forgetful- 
ness  :  "  The  Dickens  !  —  Parson  ?  " 

The  Subrector  dashed  by  like  a  comet  before  the 
lackey  ;  ordered  him  to  call  and  take  a  letter  for  his 
master ;  strode  home,  and  prepared  for  his  patron,  who 
at  Schadeck  was  waiting  for  a  long  thanksgiving  psalm, 
a  short  satirical  epistle,  as  nervous  as  haste  would  permit, 
and  mingled  a  few  nicknames  and  verbal  injuries  along 
with  it. 

The  courier  handed  in  to  his  master  Fixlein's  song  of 
gratitude  and  Fiichslein's  invectives  with  the  same  hand. 
The  dragoon  E.ittmeister,  incensed  at  the  ill-mannered 
churl,  and  bound  to  his  word,  which  Fixlein  had  publicly 
announced  in  his  Actus,  forthwith  wrote  back  to  the  new 
Parson  an  acceptance  and  ratification ;  and  Fixlein  is 
and  remains,  to  the  joy  of  us  all,  incontestible  ordained 
parson  of  Hukelum. 

His  disappointed  rival  has  still  this  consolation,  that  he 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  173 

holds  a  seat  in  the  wasp-nest  of  the  Neue  AUgemeine 
Deutsche  Bihliothek.*  Should  the  Parson  ever  chrysalize 
himself  into  an  author,  the  watch-wasp  may  then  buzz 
out,  and  dart  its  sting  into  the  chrysalis,  and  put  its  own 
brood  in  the  room  of  the  murdered  butterfly.  As  the 
Subrector  everywhere  went  about,  and  threatened  in 
plain  terms  that  he  would  review  his  colleague,  let  not 
the  public  be  surprised  that  Fixlein's  Errata,  and  his 
Masoretic  Exercitationes,  are  to  this  hour  withheld 
from  it. 

In  spring,  the  widowed  church  receives  her  new  hus- 
band ;  and  how  it  will  be,  when  Fixlein,  under  a  canopy 
of  flower-trees,  takes  the  Sponsa  Christi  in  one  hand,  and 
his  own  Sponsa  in  the  other,  —  this  without  an  Eighth 
Letter-Box,  which,  in  the  present  case,  may  be  a  true 
jewel-box  and  rainbow-key,t  can  no  mortal  figure,  ex- 
cept the  Sponsus  himself. 

*  New  Universal  German  Library,  a  reviewing  periodical,  in  those 
days  conducted  by  Nicolai,  a  sworn  enemy  to  what  has  since  been 
called  the  New  School.  —  Ed. 

t  Superstition  declares,  that  on  the  spot  where  the  rainbow  rises 
a  golden  key  is  left. 


EIGHTH    LETTER-BOX. 


I^-STALME^•T  lif  THE  PaKSOKAGE. 


N  the  loth  of  April,  1793,  the  reader  may 
observe,  far  down  in  the  hollow,  three  bag- 
iiasfe-wasrons  croaninsr  alonor.  These  basfsase- 
wagons  are  transporting  the  house-gear  of 
the  new  Parson  to  Hukelum ;  the  proprietor  himself, 
with  a  little  escort  of  his  parishioners,  is  marching  at 
their  side,  that  of  his  china  sets  and  household  furni- 
ture there  may  be  nothing  broken  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  as  the  whole  came  down  to  him  unbroken  from 
the  seventeenth.  Fixlein  hears  the  School-bell  ringing 
behind  him  ;  but  this  chime  now  sings  to  him,  hke  a 
curfew,  the  songs  of  future  rest ;  he  is  now  escaped  from 
the  Death-valley  of  the  Gymnasium,  and  admitted  into 
the  abodes  of  the  Blessed.  Here  dwells  no  envy,  no 
colleague,  no  Subrector ;  here,  in  the  heavenly  country, 
no  man  works  in  the  New  Universal  German  Library ; 
here  in  the  heavenly  Hukelumic  Jerusalem,  they  do 
nothing  but  sing  praises  in  the  church ;  and  here  the 

Perfected  requires  no  more  increase  of  knowledge 

Here,  too,  one  needs  not  sorrow  that  Sunday  and  Saint's 
day  so  often  foil  together  into  one. 

Truth  to  tell,  the  parson  goes  too  for  ;  but  it  was  his 
way  from  of  old  never  to  paint  out  the  whole  and  half 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  175 

Bliadows  of  a  situation  till  he  was  got  into  a  new  one ; 
the  beauties  of  which  he  could  then  enhance  by  contrast 
with  the  former.  For  it  requires  little  reflection  to  dis- 
cover that  the  torments  of  a  Schoolmaster  are  nothing 
so  extraordinary ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  as  in  the  Gym- 
nasium, he  mounts  from  one  degree  to  another,  not  very 
dissimilar  to  the  common  torments  of  Hell,  which,  in  spite 
of  their  eternity,  grow  weaker  from  century  to  century. 
Moreover,  since,  according  to  the  saying  of  a  Frenchman, 
deux  afflictions  mises  ensemble  peuvent  devener  une  conso- 
lation, a  man  gets  afflictions  enow  in  a  school  to  console 
him  ;  seeing  out  of  eight  combined  afflictions  —  reckon 
only  one  for  every  teacher  —  certainly  more  comfort  is  to 
be  extracted  than  out  of  two.  The  only  pity  is,  that 
school-people  will  never  act  towards  each  other  as  court- 
people  do:  none  but  polished  men  and  polished  glasses 
will  readily  cohere.  In  addition  to  all  this,  in  schools  — 
and  in  offices  generally  —  one  is  always  recompensed  ; 
for,  as  in  the  second  life  a  greater  virtue  is  the  recom- 
pense of  an  earthly  one,  so,  in  the  Schoolmaster's  case, 
his  merits  are  always  rewarded  by  more  opportunities  for 
new  merits ;  and  often  enough  he  is  not  dismissed  from 
his  post  at  all.  — 

Eight  Gymnasiasts  are  trotting  about  in  the  Parsonage, 
setting  up,  nailing  to,  hauling  in.  I  think,  as  a  scholar  of 
Plutarch,  I  am  right  to  introduce  such  seeming  minutice. 
A  man  whom  grown-up  people  love,  children  love  still 
more.  The  whole  school  had  smiled  on  the  smihng  Fix- 
lein,  and  liked  him  in  their  hearts,  because  he  did  not 
thunder,  but  sport  with  them;  because  he  said  Sie  (They), 
to  the  Secundaners,  and  the  Subrector  said  Ihr  (Ye)  ; 
because  his  uprearing  forefinger  was  his  only  sceptre  and 
baculus;   because  in  the   Secunda  he  had  interchanged 


176  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN- 

Latin  epistles  with  his  scholars  ;  and  in  the  Quinta  had 
taught  not  with  Napier's  Rods  (or  rods  of  a  sharper  de- 
scription), but  with  sticks  of  barley-sugar. 

To-day  his  churchyard  appeared  to  him  so  solemn  and 
festive,  that  he  wondered  (though  it  was  Monday)  why 
his  parishioners  were  not  in  their  holiday,  but  merely  in 
their  week-day  drapery.  Under  the  door  of  the  Parson- 
age stood  a  weeping  woman  ;  for  she  was  too  happy,  and 
he  was  her  —  son.  Yet  the  mother,  in  the  height  of  her 
emotion,  contrives  quite  readily  to  call  upon  the  carriers, 
while  disloading,  not  to  twist  off  the  four  comer  globes 
from  the  old  Frankish  chest  of  drawers.  Her  son  now 
appeared  to  her  as  venerable  as  if  he  had  sat  for  one  of 
the  copperplates  in  her  pictured  Bible  ;  and  that  simply 
because  he  had  cast  off  his  pedagogue  hair-cue,  as  the 
ripening  tadpole  does  its  tail ;  and  was  now  standing  in 
a  clerical  periwig  before  her ;  he  was  now  a  Comet,  soar- 
ing away  from  the  profane  Earth,  and  had  accordingly 
changed  from  a  Stella  caudata  into  a  Stella  crinita. 

His  bride  also  had,  on  former  days,  given  sedulous 
assistance  in  this  new  improved  edition  of  his  house,  and 
labored  faithfully  among  the  other  furnishers  and  furbish- 
ers.  But  to-day  she  kept  aloof;  for  she  was  too  good  to 
forget  the  maiden  in  the  bride.  Love,  like  men,  dies 
oftener  of  excess  than  of  hunger ;  it  lives  on  love,  but  it 
resembles  those  Alpine  flowers  which  feed  themselves  by 
suction  from  the  wet  clouds,  and  die  if  you  besprinkle 
them. 

At  length  the  Parson  is  settled,  and  of  course  he  must 
—  for  I  know  my  fair  readers,  who  are  bent  on  it  as  if 
they  were  bridemaids  —  without  delay  get  married.  But 
he  may  not ;  before  Ascension-day  there  can  nothing  be 
done,  and  till  then  are  full  four  weeks  and  a  half.     The 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  I77 

matter  was  this.  He  wished  in  the  first  place  to  have  the 
murder-Sunday,  the  Cantata,  behind  him  ;  not  indeed 
because  he  doubted  of  his  earthly  continuance,  but  be- 
cause he  would  not  (even  for  the  bride's  sake)  that  the 
slightest  apprehension  should  mingle  with  these  weeks 
of  glory. 

The  main  reason  was,  he  did  not  wish  to  marry  till  he 
were  betrothed  ;  which  latter  ceremony  was  appointed, 
with  the  Introduction  Sermon,  to  take  place  next  Sunday. 
It  is  the  Cantata-Sunday.  Let  not  the  reader  afflict  him- 
self with  fears.  Indeed,  I  should  not  have  molested  an 
enlightened  century  with  this  Sunday-  Wauwau  at  all, 
were  it  not  that  I  delineate  with  such  extreme  fidelity. 
Fixlein  himself —  especially  as  the  Quartermaster  asked 
him  if  he  was  a  baby  —  at  last  grew  so  sensible  that  he 
saw  the  folly  of  it ;  nay,  he  went  so  far  that  he  committed 
a  greater  folly.  For  as  dreaming  that  you  die  signifies, 
according  to  the  exegetic  rule  of  false,  nothing  else  than 
long  life  and  welfare,  so  did  Fixlein  easily  infer  that  his 
death-imagination  was  just  such  a  lucky  dream;  the  rather 
as  it  was  precisely  on  this  Cantata-Sunday  that  Fortune 
had  turned  up  her  cornucopia  over  him,  and  at  once  show- 
ered down  out  of  it  a  bride,  a  presentation,  and  a  roll  of 
ducats.  Thus  can  Superstition  imp  its  wings,  let  Chance 
favor  it  or  not. 

A  Secretary  of  State,  a  Peace-Treaty  writer,  a  Notary, 
any  such  incarcerated  Slave  of  the  Desk,  feels  excellently 
well  how  far  he  is  beneath  a  Parson  composing  his  inau- 
gural sermon.  The  latter  (do  but  look  at  my  Fixlein) 
lays  himself  heartily  over  the  paper,  —  injects  the  venous 
system  of  his  sermon-preparation  with  colored  ink,  —  has 
a  Text-Concordance  on  the  right  side,  and  a  Song-Con- 
cordance on  the  left ;  is  there  digging  out  a  marrowy  sen- 

8*  L 


IfS  LIFE    OF    QUI^'TUS    FIXLEIN. 

tenee,  here  clipping  oft'  a  soug-blossom,  with  both  to  gar- 
nish his  homiletic  pastry  ;  —  sketches  out  the  finest  plan 
of  operations,  not,  like  a  man  of  the  world,  to  subdue  the 
heart  of  one  woman,  but  the  hearts  of  all  women  that 
hear  him,  and  of  their  husbands  to  boot ;  draws  every 
peasant  passing  by  his  windo\v  into  some  niche  of  his  dis- 
course, to  co-operate  with  the  result ;  —  and,  finally,  scoops 
out  the  butter  of  the  smooth,  soft  hymn-book,  and  there- 
with exquisitely  fiittens  the  black  broth  of  his  sermon, 
which  is  to  feed  five  thousand  men.  —    — 

At  last,  in  the  evening,  as  the  red  sun  is  dazzling  him 
at  the  desk,  he  can  rise  with  heart  free  from  guilt ;  and, 
amid  twittering  sparrows  and  finches,  over  the  cherry- 
trees  encircling  the  parsonage,  look  toward  the  west,  till 
there  is  nothing  more  in  the  sky  but  a  faint  gleam  among 
the  clouds.  And  then  when  Fixlein,  amid  the  tolling  of 
the  evening  prayer-bell,  sloicli/  descends  the  stair  to  his 
cooking  mother,  there  must  be  some  miracle  in  the  case, 
if  for  him  whatever  has  been  done  or  baked,  or  served 
up  in  the  lower  regions,  is  not  right  and  good.  ...  A 
bound,  after  supper,  into  the  Castle  ;  a  look  into  a  pure 
loving  eye  ;  a  word  without  falseness  to  a  bride  without 
falseness  ;  and  then  under  the  coverlet,  a  sott-breathing 
breast,  in  which  there  is  nothing  but  Paradise,  a  sermon, 
and  evening  prayer.  ...  I  swear,  with  this  I  will  satisfy 
a  Mythic  God,  who  has  left  his  Heaven,  and  is  seeking 
a  new  one  among  us  here  below ! 

Can  a  mortal,  can  a  Me  in  the  wet  clay  of  Earth, 
which  Death  will  soon  dry  into  dust,  ask  more  in  one 
week  than  Fixlein  is  gathering  into  his  heart  ?  I  see 
not  how.  At  least  I  should  suppose,  if  such  a  dust- 
framed  being,  after  such  a  twenty-thousand  prize  from 
tlie   Lottery   of  Chance,   could    require    aught    more,  it 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  179 

would  at  most  be  the  twenty-one-thousand  prize,  namely, 
the  inaugural  discourse  itself. 

And  this  prize  our  Zebediius  actually  drew  on  Sunday  ; 

he  preached,  —  he  preached  with  unction, he  did  it 

before  the  crowding,  rustling  press  of  people  ;  before  his 
Guardian,  and  before  the  Lord  of  Aufhammer,  the  god- 
father of  the  priest  and  the  dog ;  —  a  flock,  with  whom  in 
childhood  he  had  driven  out  the  Castle  herds  about  the 
pasture,  he  was  now,  himself  a  spiritual  sheep-smearer, 
leading  out  to  pasture  ;  —  he  was  standing  to  the  ankles 
among  Candidates  and  Schoolmasters,  for  to-day  (what 
none  of  them  could)  at  the  altar,  with  the  nail  of  his  fin- 
ger, he  might  scratch  a  large  cross  in  the  air,  baptisms 

and  marriages  not  once  mentioned I  believe  I 

should  feel  less  scrupulous  than  I  do  to  checker  this  sun- 
shiny esplanade  with  that  thin  shadow  of  the  grave 
which  the  preacher  threw  over  it,  when,  in  the  applica- 
tion, with  wet,  heavy  eyes,  he  looked  round  over  the 
mute,  attentive  church,  as  if  in  some  corner  of  it  he 
would  seek  the  mouldering  teacher  of  his  youth  and  of 
this  congregation,  who  without,  under  the  white  tomb- 
stone, the  wrong-side  of  life,  had  laid  away  the  garment 
of  his  pious  spirit.  And  when  he,  himself  hurried  on  by 
the  internal  stream,  inexpressibly  softened  by  the  further 
recollections  of  his  own  fear  of  death  on  this  day,  of  his 
life  now  overspread  with  flowers  and  benefits,  of  his 
•entombed  benefactress  resting  here  in  her  narrow  bed, 
—  when  he  now,  before  the  dissolving  countenance  of 
her  friend,  his  Thiennette,  overpowered,  motionless,  and 
weeping,  looked  down  from  the  pulpit  to  the  door  of  the 
Schadeck  vault,  and  said :  "  Thanks,  thou  pious  soul,  for 
the  good  thou  hast  done  to  this  flock  and  to  their  new 
teacher ;  and,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  may  the  dust  of  thy 


l8o  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

god-fearing  and  man-loTing  breast  gather  itself,  transfig- 
ured as  gold-dust,  round  thy  reawakened  heavenly  heart," 

—  was  there  an  eye  in  the  audience  dry  ?  Her  husband 
sobbed  aloud,  and  Thiennette,  her  beloved,  bowed  her 
head,  sinking  down  with  inconsolable  remembrances,  over 
the  front  of  the  seat,  hke  kindred  mourners  in  a  funeral 
train. 

No  fairer  forenoon  could  prepare  the  way  for  an  after- 
noon in  which  a  man  was  to  betroth  himself  forever,  and 
to  unite  the  exchanged  rings  with  the  Ring  of  Eternity. 
Except  the  bridal  pair,  there  was  none  present  but  an 
ancient  pair;  the  mother  and  the  long  Guardian.  The 
bridegroom  w'rote  out  the  marriage-contract  or  marriage- 
charter  with  his  own  hand  ;  hereby  making  over  to  his 
bride,  from  this  day,  his  whole  movable  property  (not, 
a5  you  may  suppose,  his  pocket-library,  but  his  whole 
library ;  w^hereas,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  the  daughter  of  a 
noble  was  glad  to  get  one  or  two  books  for  marriage-por- 
tion) ;  —  in  return  for  which,  she  liberally  enough  con- 
tributed —  a  whole  nuptial  coach  or  car,  laden  as  follows  : 
with  nine  pounds  of  feathers,  not  feathers  for  the  cap 
such  as  we  carry,  but  of  the  lighter  sort  such  as  carry  us ; 

—  with  a  sumptuous  dozen  of  godchild-plates  and  god- 
child-spoons (gifts  from  Schadeck),  together  with  a  fish- 
knife  ; —  of  silk,  not  only  stockings  (though  even  King 
Henry  II.  of  France  could  dress  no  more  than  his  legs  in 
silk),  but  whole  gowns; — with  jewels  and  other  furnish- 
ings of  smaller  value.  Good  Thiennette !  in  the  chariot 
of  thy  spirit  lies  the  true  dowry  ;  namely,  thy  noble,  soft, 
modest  heart,  the  morning-gift  of  Nature ! 

The  Parson  —  who,  not  from  mistrust,  but  from  "  the 
uncertainty  of  life,"  could  have  wished  for  a  notary's  seal 
on  everything ;  to  whom  no  security  but  a  hypothecary 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  l8i 

one  appeared  sufficient ;  and  who,  in  the  depositing  of 
every  barleycorn,  required  quittances  and  contracts  — 
had  now,  when  the  marriage-charter  was  completed,  a 
lighter  heart ;  and  through  the  whole  evening  the  good 
man  ceased  not  to  thank  his  bride  for  what  she  had  given 
him.  To  me,  however,  a  marriage-contract  were  a  thing 
as  painful  and  repulsive,  —  I  confess  it  candidly,  though 
you  should  in  consequence  upbraid  me  with  my  great 
youth,  —  as  if  I  had  to  take  my  love-letter  to  a  Notary 
Imperial,  and  make  him  docket  and  countersign  it  before 
it  could  be  sent.  Heavens!  to  see  the  light  flower  of 
Love,  whose  perfume  acts  not  on  the  balance,  so  laid  like 
tulip-bulbs  on  the  hay-beam  of  Law ;  two  hearts  on  the 
cold  councillor  and  flesh-beam  of  relatives  and  Advo- 
cates, who  are  heaping  on  the  scales  nothing  but  houses, 
fields,  and  tin,  —  this,  to  the  interested  party,  may  be  as 
deligrhtful  as,  to  the  intoxicated  suckling  and  nurslinor  of 
the  Muses  and  Philosophy,  it  is  to  caiTy  the  evening  and 
morning  sacrifices  he  has  offered  up  to  his  goddess  into 
the  book-shop,  and  there  to  change  his  devotions  into 
money,  and  sell  them  by  weight  and  measure.  —  — 

From  Cantata-Sunday  to  Ascension,  that  is,  to  mar- 
riage-day, are  one  and  a  half  weeks  —  or  one  and  a  half 
blissful  eternities.  If  it  is  pleasant  that  nights  or  winter 
separate  the  days  and  seasons  of  joy  to  a  comfortable  dis- 
tance ;  if,  for  example,  it  is  pleasant  that  birthday,  Saint's- 
day,  betrothment,  marriage,  and  baptismal  day,  do  not  all 
occur  on  the  same  day  (for  with  very  few  do  those  fes- 
tivities, like  Holiday  and  Apostle's  day,  commerge), — 
then  is  it  still  more  pleasant  to  make  the  interval,  the 
flower-border,  between  betrothment  and  marriage,  of  an 
extraordinary  breadth.  Before  the  marriage-day  are  the 
true  honey-weeks ;  then  come  the  wax-weeks ;  then  the 
honey- vinegar-weeks. 


l82  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

In  the  Ninth  Letter-Box  our  Parson  celebrates  his 
wedding;  and  here,  in  the  Eighth,  I  shall  just  briefly 
skim  over  his  way  and  manner  of  existence  till  then  ;  an 
existence,  as  might  have  been  expected,  celestial  enough. 
To  few  is  it  allotted,  as  it  was  to  him,  to  have  at  once 
such  wings  and  such  flowers  (to  fly  over)  before  his  nup- 
tials ;  to  few  is  it  allotted,  I  imagine,  to  purchase  flour 
and  poultry  on  the  same  day,  as  Fixlein  did  ;  —  to  stuff 
the  wedding-turkey  with  hangman-meals  ;  —  to  go  every 
night  into  the  stall,  and  see  whether  the  wedding-pig, 
which  his  Guardian  had  given  him  by  way  of  marriage- 
present,  is  still  standing  and  eating;  —  to  spy  out  for  his 
future  wife  the  flax-magazines  and  clothes-press-niches  in 
the  house  ;  —  to  lay  in  new  wood-stores  in  the  prospect 
of  winter;  —  to  obtain  from  the  Consistorium  directly, 
and  for  little  smart-money,  their  Bull  of  Dispensation, 
their  remission  of  the  threefold  proclamation  of  banns; 
—  to  live  not  in  a  city,  where  you  must  send  to  every 
fool  (because  you  are  one  yourself),  and  disclose  to  him 
that  you  are  going  to  be  married ;  but  in  a  little  angular 
hamlet,  where  you  have  no  one  to  tell  aught,  but  simply 
the  Schoolmaster  that  he  is  to  ring  a  little  later,  and  put 
a  knee-cushion  before  the  altar.  —  — 

O,  if  the  Ritter  Michaelis  maintains  that  Paradise  was 
little,  because  otherwise  the  people  would  not  have  found 
each  other,  —  a  hamlet  and  its  joys  are  little  and  narrow, 
so  that  some  shadow  of  Eden  may  still  linger  on  our 
Ball. 

I  have  not  even  hinted  that,  the  day  before  the  wed- 
ding, the  Regiments-Quartermaster  came  uncalled,  and 
killed  the  pig,  and  made  puddings  gratis,  such  as  were 
never  eaten  at  any  Court. 

And  besides,  dear  Fixlein,  on  this  soft,  rich  oil  of  joy 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  183 

there  was  also  floating  gratis  a  vernal  sun,  —  and  red 
twilights,  —  and  flower-garlands,  —  and  a  bursting  half- 
w^orld  of  buds  !  .  .  .  . 

How  didst  thou  behave  thee  in  these  hot  whirlpools 
of  pleasure?  —  Thou  movedst  thy  Fishtail  (Reason), 
and  therewith  describedst  for  thyself  a  rectilineal  course 
through  the  billows.  For  even  half  as  much  would  have 
hurried  another  Parson  from  his  study  ;  but  the  very 
crowning  felicity  of  ours  was,  that  he  stood  as  if  rooted  to 
the  boundary -hill  of  Moderation,  and  from  thence  looked 
down  on  what  thousands  flout  away.  Sitting  opposite  the 
Castle-windows,  he  was  still  in  a  condition  to  reckon  up 
that  Amen  occurs  in  the  Bible  one  hundred  and  thirty 
times.  Nay,  to  his  old  learned  laboratory  he  now  ap- 
pended a  new  chemical  stove  ;  he  purposed  writing  to 
Niirnberg  and  Baireuth,  and  there  offering  his  pen  to 
the  Brothers  Senft,  not  only  for  composing  practical  ^e- 
ceipts  at  the  end  of  their  Almanacs,  but  also  for  separate 
Essays  in  front  under  the  copperplate  title  of  each  Month, 
because  he  had  a  thought  of  making  some  reformatory 
cuts  at  the  common  people's  mental  habitudes  .  .  .  And 
now,  when  in  the  capacity  of  Parson  he  had  less  to  do, 
and  could  add  to  the  holy  resting-day  of  the  congregation 
six  literary  creating-days,  he  determined  (even  in  these 
Carnival  weeks)  to  strike  his  plough  into  the  hitherto 
quite  fallow  History  of  Hukelum,  and  soon  to  follow  the 
plough  with  his  drill 

Thus  roll  his  minutes,  on  golden  wheels-of-fortune,  over 
the  twelve  days,  which  form  the  glancing  star-paved  road 
to  the  third  heaven  of  the  thirteenth,  that  is,  to  the 


NINTH     LETTER-BOX, 


Or  to  the  Marriage. 


^  TSE,  fiiir  Ascension  and  Marriage  day,  and 
gladden  readers  also !  Adorn  thyself  with 
the  fairest  jewel,  Avith  the  bride,  whose  sonl 
J  is  as  pure  and  glittering  as  its  vesture  ;  like 
pearl  and  pearl-muscle,  the  one,  as  the  other,  lustrous 
and  ornamental !  And  so  over  the  espalier,  whose  fruit- 
hedge  has  hitherto  divided  our  darling  from  his  Eden, 
every  reader  now  presses  after  him  I  — 

On  the  9th  of  May,  1793,  about  three  in  the  morning, 
there  came  a  sharp  peal  of  trumpets,  like  a  light-beam, 
through  the  dim-red  May-dawn  ;  two  twisted  horns,  with 
a  straight  trumpet  between  them,  like  a  note  of  admira- 
tion between  interrogation-points,  were  clanging  from  a 
house  in  which  only  a  parishioner  (not  the  Parson)  dwelt 
and  blew  ;  for  this  parishioner  had  last  night  been  cele- 
brating the  same  ceremony  which  the  pastor  had  this  day 
before  him.  Tlie  joyful  tallyho  raised  our  Parson  from 
his  broad  bed  (iuid  the  Shock  from  beneath  it,  who  some 
weeks  ago  had  been  exiled  from  the  white,  sleek  cover- 
let), and  this  so  early,  that  in  the  portraying  tester,  where 
on  every  former  morning  he  had  observed  his  ruddy  vis- 
age, and  his  white  bedclothes,  all  was  at  present  dim  and 
crayoned. 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  185 

I  confess,  the  new-painted  room,  and  a  gleam  of  dawn 
on  the  wall,  made  it  so  light,  that  he  could  see  his  knee- 
buckles  glancing  on  the  chair.  He  then  softly  awakened 
his  mother  (the  other  guests  were  to  lie  for  hours  in  the 
sheets),  and  she  had  the  city  cook-maid  to  awaken,  who, 
like  several  other  articles  of  wedding-furniture,  had  been 
borrowed  for  a  day  or  two  from  Flachsenfingen.  At  two 
doors  he  knocked  in  vain,  and  without  answer ;  for  all 
were  already  down  at  the  hearth,  cooking,  blowing,  and 
arranging. 

How  softly  does  the  Spring  day  gradually  fold  back  its 
nun-veil,  and  the  Earth  grow  bright,  as  if  it  were  the 
morning  of  a  Resurrection  !  —  The  quicksilver-pillar  of 
the  barometer,  the  guiding  Fire-pillar  of  the  weather- 
prophet,  rests  firmly  on  Fixlein's  Ark  of  the  Covenant. 
The  Sun  raises  himself,  pure  and  cool,  into  the  morning- 
blue,  instead  of  into  the  morning-red.  Swallows,  instead 
of  clouds,  shoot  skimmino;  throuojh  the  melodious  air  .  .  . 
O,  the  good  Genius  of  Fair  Weather,  who  deserves  many 
temples  and  festivals  (because  without  him  no  festival 
could  be  held),  lifted  an  ethereal,  azure  Day,  as  it  were, 
from  the  well-clear  atmosphere  of  the  Moon,  and  sent  it 
down,  on  blue  butterfly-wings,  —  as  if  it  were  a  blue  Mon- 
day, —  glittering  below  the  Sun,  in  the  zigzag  of  joyful, 
quivering  descent,  upon  the  narrow  spot  of  Earth,  which 
our  heated  fancies  are  now  viewing  ....  And  on  this 
balmy,  vernal  spot  stand,  amid  flowers,  over  which  the 
trees  are  shaking  blossoms  instead  of  leaves,  a  bride  and 

a  bridegroom Happy  Fixlein !  how  shall  I  paint 

thee  without  deepening  the  sighs  of  longing  in  the  fairest 
souls  ?  — 

But  soft !  we  will  not  drink  the  magic  cup  of  Fancy 
to  the  bottom  at  six  in  the  morning ;  but  keep  sober  till 
towards  night ! 


l86  LIFE    OF    QUIN'TUS    FIXLEIN. 

At  the  sound  of  the  morning  prayer-bell,  the  bride- 
groom, for  the  din  of  preparation  was  disturbing  his  quiet 
orison,  went  out  into  the  churchyard,  which  (as  in  many 
other  places),  together  with  the  church,  lay  round  his 
mansion  like  a  court.  Here  on  the  moist  green,  over 
whose  closed  flowers  the  churchyard  wall  was  still  spread- 
ing broad  shadows,  did  his  spirit  cool  itself  from  the  warm 
dreams  of  Earth  ;  here,  where  the  white  flat  gravestone 
of  his  Teacher  lay  before  him  like  the  fallen-in  door  on 
the  Janus's-temple  of  Life,  or  hke  the  windward  side  of 
the  narrow  house,  turned  towards  the  tempests  of  the 
world  ;  here,  where  the  little  shrunk  metallic  door  on  the 
grated  cross  of  his  father  uttered  to  him  the  inscriptions 
of  death,  and  the  year  when  his  parent  departed,  and  all 
the  admonitions  and  mementos,  graven  on  the  lead ;  — 
there,  I  say,  his  mood  grew  softer  and  more  solemn ;  and 
he  now  lifted  up  by  heart  his  morning  prayer,  which 
usually  he  read  ;  and  entreated  God  to  bless  him  in  his 
ofiice,  and  to  spare  his  mother's  life,  and  to  look  with 
favor  and  acceptance  on  the  purpose  of  to-day.  Then 
over  the  graves  he  walked  into  his  fenceless  little  angular 
flower-garden  ;  and  here,  composed  and  confident  in  the 
Divine  keeping,  he  pressed  the  stalks  of  his  tulips  deeper 
into  the  mellow  earth. 

But  on  returning  to  the  house,  he  was  met  on  all  hands 
by  the  bell-ringing  and  the  Janizary-music  of  wedding- 
gladness  ;  —  the  marriage-guests  had  all  thrown  off  their 
nightcaps,  and  were  drinking  diligently  ;  —  there  was  a 
clattering,  a  cooking,  a  frizzling  ;  —  tea-services,  coffee- 
services,  and  warm  beer-services,  were  advancing  in  suc- 
cession ;  and  plates  full  of  bride-cakes  were  going  round 
like  potters'  frames  or  cistern-wheels.  —  The  Schoolmas- 
ter, with  three  vountz;  lads,  was  heard  rehearsino;  from  his 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  187 

own  house  an  Arioso,  with  which,  so  soon  as  they  were 
perfect,  he  purposed  to  surprise  his  clerical  superior.  — 
But  now  rushed  all  the  arms  of  the  foaming  joy-streams 
into  one,  when  the  sky-queen  besprinkled  with  blossoms, 
the  bride,  descended  upon  Earth  in  her  timid  joy,  full 
of  quivering,  humble  love  ;  —  when  the  bells  began  ;  — 
when  the  procession-column  set  forth  with  the  whole 
village  round  and  before  it ;  —  when  the  organ,  the  con- 
gregation, the  officiating  priest,  and  the  sparrows  on  the 
trees  of  the  church-window,  struck  louder  and  louder 
their  rolling  peals  on  the  drum  of  the  jubilee-festival.  .  .  . 
The  heart  of  the  singing  bridegroom  was  like  to  leap  from 
its  place  for  joy,  "  that  on  his  bridal-day  it  was  all  so  re- 
spectable and  grand."  —  Not  till  the  marriage  benediction 
could  he  pray  a  little. 

Still  worse  and  louder  grew  the  business  during  dinner, 
when  pastry-work  and  marchpane-devices  were  brought 
forward,  —  when  glasses  and  slain  fishes  (laid  under  the 
napkins  to  frighten  the  guests)  went  round  ;  —  and  when 
the  guests  rose,  and  themselves  went  round,  and  at  length 
danced  round  ;  for  they  had  instrumental  music  from  the 
city  there. 

One  minute  handed  over  to  the  other  the  sugar-bowl 
and  bottle-case  of  joy  ;  the  guests  heard  and  saw  less  and 
less,  and  the  villagers  began  to  see  and  hear  more  and 
more,  and  towards  night  they  penetrated  like  a  wedge 
into  the  open  door,  —  nay,  two  youths  ventured  even,  in 
the  middle  of  the  parsonage-court,  to  mount  a  plank  over 
a  beam,  and  commence  seesawing.  Out  of  doors,  the 
gleaming  vapor  of  the  departed  Sun  was  encircling  the 
Earth,  the  evening  star  was  glittering  over  parsonage 
and  churchyard ;  no  one  heeded  it. 

However,  about   nine  o'clock,  —  when  the   marriage- 


l88  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

guests  had  wellnigh  forgotten  the  marriage-pair,  and  were 
drinking  or  dancing  along  for  their  own  behoof;  when 
poor  mortals,  in  this  sunshine  of  Fate,  like  fishes  in 
the  sunshine  of  the  sky,  were  leaping  up  from  their 
wet,  cold  element  ;  and  wlien  the  bridegroom,  under  the 
star  of  happiness  and  love,  casting  like  a  comet  its  long 
train  of  radiance  over  all  his  heaven,  had  in  secret  pressed 
to  his  joy-filled  breast  his  bride  and  his  mother,  —  then 
did  he  lock  a  slice  of  wedding-bread  privily  into  a  press, 
in  the  old  superstitious  belief,  that  this  residue  secured 
continuance  of  bread  for  the  whole  marriage.  As  he  re- 
turned, with  greater  love  for  the  sole  partner  of  his  life, 
she  herself  met  him  with  his  mother,  to  deliver  him  in 
private  the  bridal-nightgown  and  bridal-shirt,  as  is  the 
ancient  usage.  Many  a  countenance  grows  pale  in  vio- 
lent emotions,  even  of  joy  ;  Thiennette's  wax-fliee  was 
bleaching  still  whiter  under  the  sunbeams  of  Happiness. 
O  never  fall,  thou  lily  of  Heaven,  and  may  four  springs 
instead  of  four  seasons  open  and  shut  thy  flower-bells  to 
the  sun  !  All  the  arms  of  his  soul  as  he  floated  on  the 
sea  of  joy  were  quivering  to  clasp  the  soft,  warm  heart  of 
his  beloved,  to  encircle  it  gently  and  fast,  and  draw  it  to 

his  own 

He  led  her  from  the  crowded  dancing-room  into  the 
cool  evening.  AYhy  does  the  evening,  does  the  night,  put 
warmer  love  in  our  hearts  ?  Is  it  the  nightly  pressure 
of  helplessness  ;  or  is  it  the  exalting  separation  from  the 
turmoil  of  life  ;  that  veiling  of  the  world,  in  which  for 
the  soul  nothing  more  remains  but  souls ;  —  is  it  there- 
fore, that  the  letters  in  which  the  loved  name  stands 
written  on  our  spirit  appear,  like  phosphorus-writing,  by 
night  injire,  while  by  day  in  theii*  cloudy  traces  they  but 
smoke  ? 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  189 

He  walked  with  his  bride  into  the  Castle-gaTden ;  she 
hastened  quickly  through  the  castle,  and  past  its  servants'- 
hall,  where  the  fair  flowers  of  her  young  life  had  been 
crushed  broad  and  dry,  under  a  long,  dreary  pressure; 
and  her  soul  expanded,  and  breathed  in  the  free  open 
garden,  on  whose  flowery  soil  destiny  had  cast  forth  the 
first  seeds  of  the  blossoms  which  to-day  were  gladdening 
her  existence.  Still  Eden !  Green  flower-checkered 
chiaroscuro  !  —  The  moon  is  sleeping  under  ground  like 
a  dead  one ;  but  beyond  the  garden  the  sun's  red  even- 
ing-clouds have  fallen  down  like  rose-leaves ;  and  the 
evening-star,  the  brideman  of  the  sun,  hovers,  like  a 
glancing  butterfly,  above  the  rosy  red,  and,  modest  as 
a  bride,  deprives  no  single  starlet  of  its  light. 

The  wandering  pair  arrived  at  the  old  gardener's  hut ; 
now  standing  locked  and  dumb,  with  dark  windows  in  the 
light  garden,  like  a  fragment  of  the  Past  surviving  in  the 
Present.  Bared  twigs  of  trees  were  folding,  with  clam- 
my, half-formed  leaves,  over  the  thick,  intertwisted  tangles 
of  the  bushes.  —  The  Spring  was  standing,  like  a  con- 
queror, with  Winter  at  his  feet.  —  In  the  blue  pond,  now 
bloodless,  a  dusky  evening-sky  lay  hollowed  out,  and  the 
gushing  waters  were  moistening  the  flower-beds.  —  The 
silver  sparks  of  stars  were  rising  on  the  altar  of  the 
East,  and  falling  down  extinguished  in  the  red  sea  of  the 
West. 

The  wind  whirred,  like  a  night-bird,  louder  through  the 
trees ;  and  gave  tones  to  the  acacia-grove,  and  the  tones 
called  to  the  pair  who  had  first  become  happy  within  it : 
"  Enter,  new  m.ortal  pair,  and  think  of  what  is  past,  and 
of  my  withering  and  your  own  ;  and  be  holy  as  Eternity, 
and  weep  not  only  for  joy,  but  for  gratitude  also ! "  — 
And   the  wet-eyed   bridegroom   led  his  wet-eyed   bride 


190  LIFE    OF    QUIXTUS    FIXLEIN. 

under  the  blossoms,  and  laid  his  soul,  like  a  flower,  on 
her  heart,  and  said :  ••  Best  Thiennetie.  I  am  unspeaka- 
bly happy,  and  would  say  much,  and  cannot,  —  Ah,  thou 
Dearest,  we  will  live  like  angels,  like  children  together ! 
Surelv  I  will  do  all  that  is  cood  to  thee  ;  two  rears  as:o 
I  had  nothing,  no  nothing:  ah,  it  is  through  thee,  best 
love,  that  I  am  happy.  I  call  thee  Thou,  now,  thou  dear 
good  soul!"  She  drew  him  closer  to  her.  and  said, 
though  without  kissing  him :  "  Call  me  Thou  alwavs, 
DeiJest !  "  ^ 

And  as  they  stept  forth  again  from  the  sacred  grove 
into  the  magic-dusky  garden,  he  took  oflf  his  hat ;  first, 
that  he  might  internally  thank  Gk)d,  and  secondly,  be- 
cause he  wi-hed  to  look  into  this  fairest  evening  sky. 

They  reached  the  blazing,  rustling  marriage-house,  but 
their  softened  hearts  sought  stillness  ;  and  a  foreign  touch, 
as  in  the  blossoming  vine,  would  have  disturbed  the  flower- 
nuptials  of  their  souls.  They  turned  rather,  and  winded 
up  into  the  churchyard  to  preserve  their  mood.  Majestic 
on  the  groves  and  mountains  stood  the  Night  before  man's 
heart,  and  made  it  also  great.  Over  the  ichite  steeple- 
obelisk  the  sky  rested  Uiier  and  darker  :  and  behind  it 
wavered  the  withered  summit  of  the  May-pole  with  faded 
flag.  The  son  noticed  his  father's  grave,  on  which  the 
wind  was  opening  and  shutting,  with  harsh  noise,  the  little 
door  of  the  metal  cross,  to  let  the  year  of  his  death  be 
read  on  the  brass  plate  within.  An  overpowering  sad- 
ness seized  his  heart  with  violent  streams  of  tears,  and 
drove  him  to  the  sunk  hiUock,  and  he  led  his  bride  to 
the  grave,  and  said :  "  Here  sleeps  he.  ray  good  father ; 
in  his  thirty-second  year  he  was  carried  liither  to  his 
long  rest.  O  Thou  good,  dear  father,  couldst  thou  to-day 
but  see  the  happiness  of  thy  son,  like  my  mother !     But 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  191 

thy  eyes  are  empty,  and  thy  breast  is  full  of  ashes,  and 
thou  seest  us  not."  —  He  was  silent.  The  bride  wept 
aloud;  she  saw  the  mouldering  coffins  of  her  parents 
open,  and  the  two  dead  arise  and  look  round  for  their 
daughter,  who  had  stayed  so  long  behind  them,  forsaken 
on  the  Earth.  She  fell  upon  his  heart,  and  faltered : 
"O  beloved,  I  have  neither  father  nor  mother;  do  not 
forsake  me ! " 

O  thou  who  hast  still  a  father  and  a  mother,  thank  God 
for  it,  on  the  day  when  thy  soul  is  full  of  joyful  tears, 
and  needs  a  bosom  wherein  to  shed  them 

And  with  this  embracing  at  a  father's  grave,  let  this 
day  of  joy  be  holily  concluded.  — 


TENTH    LETTER-BOX. 


St.  Thomas's-Dat  axd  Birthday. 


X  Author  is  a  sort  of  bee-keeper  for  his  reader- 

M^/M'V^^    ^'^^^ni  •    in   whose    behalf  he    separates    the 

Flora  kept  for  their  use  into  different  seasons, 

1  and  here   accelerates,  and   there  retards,  the 


blossoming  of  many  a  flower,  that  so  in  all  chapters  there 
be  blooming. 

The  goddess  of  Love  and  the  angel  of  Peace  conducted 
our  married  pair  on  tracks  running  over  full  meadows, 
through  the  Spring ;  and  on  footpaths  hidden  by  high 
corn-fields,  through  the  Summer ;  and  Autumn,  as  they 
advanced  towards  TTinter,  spread  her  marble  leaves  under 
their  feet.  And  thus  they  amved  before  the  low,  dark 
gate  of  Winter,  full  of  life,  full  of  love,  trustful,  con- 
tented, sound,  and  ruddy. 

On  St.  Thomas's-day  was  Thiennette's  birthday  as  well 
as  Winter's.  About  a  quarter  past  nine,  just  when  the 
singing  ceases  in  the  church,  we  shall  take  a  peep  through 
the  window  into  the  interior  of  the  parsonage.  There  is 
nothing  here  but  the  old  mother,  who  has  all  day  (the  son 
having  restricted  her  to  rest,  and  not  work)  been  gliding 
about,  and  brashing,  and  burnishing,  and  scouring,  and 
wiping ;  every  carved  chair-leg,  and  every  brass  nail  of 
the  waxcloth-covered  table,  she  has  polished  into  bright- 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  193 

ness  ;  —  everything  hangs,  as  with  all  married  people  who 
have  no  children,  in  its  right  place,  brushes,  fly-flaps,  and 
almanacs  ;  —  the  chairs  are  stationed  by  the  room-police 
in  their  ancient  corners  ;  —  a  flax-rock,  encircled  with  a 
diadem,  or  scarf  of  azure  riband,  is  lying  in  the  Schadeck- 
bed,  because,  though  it  is  a  half-holiday,  some  spinning 
may  go  an ;  —  the  narrow  slips  of  paper,  whereon  heads 
of  sermons  are  to  be  arranged,  lie  white  beside  the  ser- 
mons themselves,  that  is,  beside  the  octavo  paper-book 
which  holds  them,  for  the  Parson  and  his  work-table,  by 
reason  of  the  cold,  have  migrated  from  the  study  to  the  sit- 
ting-room ;  —  his  large  furred  doublet  is  hanging  beside 
his  clean  bridegroom-nightgown ;  there  is  nothing  wanting 
in  the  room  but  He  and  She.  For  he  had  preached  her 
with  him  to-night  into  the  empty  Apostle's-day  church, 
that  so  her  mother,  without  witnesses,  —  except  the  two 
or  three  thousand  readers  who  are  peeping  with  me 
through  the  window,  —  might  arrange  the  provender- 
baking,  and  whole  commissariat  department  of  the  birth- 
day-festival, and  spread  out  her  best  table-gear  and 
victual-stores  without  obstruction. 

The  soul-curer  reckoned  it  no  sin  to  admonish,  and  ex- 
hort, and  encourage,  and  threaten  his  parishioners,  till  he 
felt  pretty  certain  that  the  soup  must  be  smoking  on  the 
plates.  Then  he  led  his  birthday  helpmate  home,  and 
suddenly  placed  her  before  the  altar  of  meat-offering,  be- 
fore a  sweet  title-page  of  bread-tart,  on  which  her  name 
stood  baked,  in  true  monastic  characters,  in  tooth-letters 
of  almonds.  In  the  background  of  time  and  of  the  room,  I 
yet  conceal  two  —  bottles  of  Pontac.  How  quickly,  under 
the  sunshine  of  joy,  do  thy  cheeks  grow  ripe,  Thiennette, 
when  thy  husband  solemnly  says  :  "  This  is  thy  birthday ; 
and  may  the  Lord  bless  thee,  and  watch  over  thee,  and 
9  M 


194  LIFE    OF    QUINT  US    FIXLEIN. 

cause  hi?  countenance  to  shine  on  thee,  and  send  thee,  to 
the  joy  of  our  mother  and  thy  husband  especrally,  a 
liappv,  gU\d  recovery.  Amen  !  "  —  And  wlien  Thiennetre 
perceived  that  it  was  the  old  mistress  who  had  cooked 
and  served  up  all  this  herself,  she  fell  upon  her  neck,  as 
if  it  had  been  not  her  husband's  motlier,  but  her  own. 

Emotion  conquers  the  appetite.  But  Fixlein's  stomach 
was  as  strong  as  his  heart  ;  and  with  him  no  species  of 
movement  could  subdue  the  peristaltic.  Drink  is  the 
friction-oil  of  the  tongue,  as  eating  is  its  drag.  Yet,  not 
till  he  had  eaten  and  spoken  much,  did  the  pastor  fill  the 
glasses.  Then  indeed  he  drew  the  corksluice  from  the 
bottle,  and  set  forth  its  streams.  The  sickly  mother,  of  a 
being  still  hid  beneath  her  heart,  turned  her  eyes,  in  em- 
baiTassed  emotion,  on  the  old  woman  only ;  and  could 
scarcely  chide  him  for  sending  to  the  city  wine-merchant 
on  her  account.  He  took  a  glass  in  each  hand,  for  each 
of  the  two  whom  he  loved,  and  handed  them  to  his  mother 
and  liis  wife,  and  said  :  "  To  thy  long,  long  life,  Thien- 
nette  !  —  And  your  health  and  happiness,  Mamma  !  — 
And  a  glad  arrival  to  our  little  one,  if  God  so  bless  us !  '* 
"  My  son,"  said  the  gardeneress,  "it  is  to  thy  long  life 
that  we  must  drink  ;  for  it  is  by  thee  we  are  supported. 
God  grant  thee  length  of  days  I "  added  she,  with  stifled 
voice,  and  her  eyes  betrayed  her  tears. 

I  nowhere  find  a  livelier  emblem  of  the  female  sex,  in 
all  its  boundless  levity,  than  in  the  case  where  a  woman 
is  carrying  the  angel  of  Death  beneath  her  heart,  and  yet 
in  these  nine  months  full  of  mortal  tokens  thinks  of  noth- 
ing more  important  than  oi  Avho  shall  be  the  gossips,  and 
what  shall  be  cooked  at  the  christening!  But  thou, 
Thiennette,  hadst  nobler  thoughts,  though  these  too  along 
with  them.     The  still  hidden  darling  of   thy  heart  was 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  195 

resting  before  thy  eyes  like  a  little  angel  sculptured  on 
a  gravestone,  and  pointing  with  its  small  finger  to  the 
hour  when  thou  shouldst  die  ;  and  every  morning  and 
every  evening  thou  thoughtest  of  death  with  a  certainty 
of  which  I  yet  knew  not  the  reasons ;  and  to  thee  it  was 
as  if  the  Earth  were  a  dark  mineral  cave,  where  man's 
blood,  like  stalactitic  water,  drops  down,  and  in  dropping 
raises  shapes  which  gleam  so  transiently,  and  so  quickly 
fade  away  !  And  that  was  the  cause  why  tears  were 
continually  trickling  from  thy  soft  eyes,  and  betraying  all 
thy  anxious  thoughts  about  thy  child  ;  but  thou  repaidst 
these  sad  effusions  of  thy  heart  by  the  embrace  in  which, 
with  new-awakened  love,  thou  fellest  on  thy  husband's 
neck,  and  saidst :  "  Be  as  it  may,  God's  will  be  done,  so 
thou  and  my  child  are  left  alive  !  —  But  I  know  well 
that  thou,  Dearest,  lovest  me  as  I  do  thee."  .  .  .  Lay 
thy  hand,  good  mother,  full  of  blessings,  on  the  two  ;  and 
thou,  kind  Fate,  never  lift  thine  away  from  them  !  — 

It  is  with  emotion  and  good  wishes  that  I  witness  the 
kiss  of  two  fair  friends,  or  the  embracing  of  two  virtuous 
lovers  ;  and  from  the  fire  of  their  altar  sparks  fly  over  to 
me  ;  but  what  is  this  to  our  sympathetic  exaltation  when 
we  see  two  mortals,  bending  under  the  same  burden, 
bound  to  the  same  duties,  animated  to  the  same  care  for 
the  same  little  darlings,  fall  on  one  another's  overflowing 
hearts,  in  some  fair  hour  ?  And  if  these,  moreover,  are 
two  mortals  who  already  wear  the  mourning  weeds  of 
life,  I  mean  old  age,  whose  hair  and  cheeks  are  now 
grown  colorless,  and  eyes  grown  dim,  and  whose  faces  a 
thousand  thorns  have  marred  into  images  of  Sorrow  ;  — 
when  these  two  clasp  each  other  with  such  wearied,  aged 
arms,  and  so  near  to  the  precipice  of  the  grave,  and  when 
they  say  or  think  :  "  All  in  us  is  dead,  but  not  our  love 


196  LIFE    OF    QCINTUS    FIXLEIX. 

—  O  we  have  lived  and  suffered  long  together,  and  now 
we  will  hold  out  our  hands  to  Death  together  also,  and 
let  him  carnr  us  away  together."  —  does  not  all  within  ns 
err:  O  Love,  thy  spark  is  superior  to  Time;  it  bums 
neither  in  joy  nor  in  the  eheek  of  roses  ;  it  dies  not, 
neither  under  a  thousand  tears  nor  under  the  snow  of  old 
age,  nor  under  the  ashes  of  thy  —  beloved.  It  never 
dies ;  and  Thou,  AU-good '  if  there  were  no  eternal  love, 
there  were  no  love  at  all 

To  the  Parson  it  was  easier  than  it  is  to  me  to  pave 
for  himself  a  transition  from  the  heart  to  the  digestive 
ikcalty.  He  now  submitted  to  Thiennette  (whose  voice 
at  once  grew  cheerful,  while  her  eyes  time  after  time 
began  to  sparkle)  his  purpose  to  take  advantage  of  the 
frosty  weather  and  have  the  winter  meat  slaughtered  and 
salted.  **  The  pig  can  scarcely  rise."  said  he  ;  and  forth- 
with he  fixed  the  determination  of  the  women,  further  the 
butcher,  and  the  day,  and  all  ei  ceteras  ;  appointing  everj'- 
thing  with  a  degree  of  punctuality,  such  as  the  war-col- 
l^e  (when  it  applies  the  cupping-glass,  the  battle-sword, 
to  the  overtuU  system  of  mankind)  exhibits  on  the  pre- 
vious day,  in  its  arrangements,  before  it  drives  a  province 
into  the  baiting-ring  and  slaughter-house. 

This  settled,  he  began  to  talk  and  feel  quite  joyously 
about  the  course  of  winter,  which  had  commenced  to-day 
at  two-and-twenty  minutes  past  eight  in  the  morning ; 
**  for,"  said  he,  "  new-year  is  close  at  hand  ;  and  we  shall 
not  need  so  much  candle  to-morrow  night  as  to-night." 
His  mother,  it  is  true,  came  athwart  him  with  the  weapons 
of  her  five  senses ;  but  he  fronted  her  with  his  Astronom- 
ical Tables,  and  proved  that  the  lengthening  of  the  day 
was  no  less  tmdeniable  than  imperceptible.  In  the  last 
place,  like  most  official  and  married  persons,  heeding  little 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  197 

whether  his  women  took  him  or  not,  he  informed  them,  in 
juristico-theological  phrase  :  "  That  he  would  put  off  no 
longer,  but  write  this  very  afternoon  to  the  venerable 
Consistorium,  in  whose  hands  lay  the  Jus  circa  sacra,  for 
a  new  Ball  to  the  church-steeple  ;  and  the  rather,  as  he 
hoped  before  new-year's  day  to  raise  a  bountiful  subscrip- 
tion from  the  parish  for  this  purpose.  If  God  spare  us 
till  spring,"  added  he,  with  peculiar  cheerfulness,  "and 
thou  wert  happily  recovered,  I  might  so  arrange  the 
whole  that  the  ball  should  be  set  up  at  thy  first  church- 
going,  dame ! " 

Thereupon  he  shifted  his  chair  from  the  dinner  and 
dessert  table  to  the  work-table  ;  and  spent  the  half  of  his 
afternoon  over  the  petition  for  the  steeple-ball.  As  there 
still  remained  a  little  space  till  dusk,  he  clapped  his  tackle 
to  his  new  learned  Opus,  of  which  I  must  now  afford  a 
little  glimpse.  Out  of  doors  among  the  snow,  there  stood 
near  Hukelum  an  old  Robber-Castle,  which  Fixlein,  every 
day  in  Autumn,  had  hovered  round  like  a  revenant,  with 
a  view  to  gauge  it,  ichnographically  to  delineate  it,  to  put 
every  window-bar  and  every  bridle-hook  of  it  correctly 
on  paper.  He  believed  he  was  not  expecting  too  much, 
if  thereby  —  and  by  some  drawings  of  the  not  so  much 
vertical  as  horizontal  walls  —  he  hoped  to  impart  to  his 
"  Architectural  Correspondence  of  two  Friends  concerning 
the  Hukelum  Robber -Castle"  that  last  pohsh  and  labor 
linice  which  contents  Reviewers.  For  towards  the  criti- 
cal Star-chamber  of  the  Reviewers  he  entertained  not  that 
contempt  which  some  authors  actually  feel  —  or  only 
affect,  as,  for  instance,  I.  From  this  mouldered  Robber- 
Louvre,  there  grew  for  him  more  flowers  of  joy  than  ever 
in  all  probability  had  grown  from  it  of  old  for  its  owners. 
—  To  my  knowledge,  it  is  an  anecdote  not  hitherto  made 


19S  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

public,  that  for  all  this  no  man  but  Biisching  has  to  answer. 
Fixlein  had,  not  long  ago,  among  the  rubbish  of  the  church 
letter-room,  stumbled  on  a  paper  wherein  the  Geographer 
had  been  requesting  special  information  about  the  statistics 
of  the  village.  Biisching,  it  is  true,  had  picked  up  noth- 
ing, —  accordingly,  indeed,  Hukelum,  in  his  Geography,  is 
stiil  omitted  altogeiher  ;  —  but  this  pestilential  letter  had 
infected  Fixlein  with  the  spring-fever  of  Ambition,  so  that 
his  palpitating  heart  was  no  longer  to  be  stilled  or  held  in 
check,  except  by  the  assatoetida-emulsion  of  a  review.  It 
is  ^^;ith  authorcraft  as  with  love ;  both  of  them  for  decades 
long  one  may  equally  desire  and  forbear  ;  but  is  the  first 
spark  once  thrown  into  the  powder-magazine,  it  burns  to 
the  end  of  the  chapter. 

Simply  because  winter  had  commenced  by  the  Alma- 
nac, the  fire  must  be  larger  than  usual ;  for  warm  rooms, 
like  large  furs  and  bear-skin  caps,  were  things  which  he 
loved  more  than  you  would  figure.  The  dusk,  this  fair 
chiaroscuro  of  the  day,  this  colored  foreground  of  the 
night,  he  lengthened  out  as  far  as  possible,  that  he  might 
study  Christmas  discourses  therein ;  and  yet  could  his 
wife,  without  scruple,  just  as  he  was  pacing  up  and  down 
the  room,  with  the  sowing-sheet  full  of  divine  word-seeds 
hung  round  his  shoulder.  —  hold  up  to  him  a  spoonful  of 
alegar,  that  he  might  try  the  same  in  his  palate,  and  de- 
cide whether  she  should  yet  draw  it  ofi'.  Nay.  did  he  not 
in  all  cases,  though  fonder  of  roe-fishes  himself,  order  a 
milter  to  be  drawn  from  the  herring-barrel,  because  his 
good- wife  liked  it  better  ?  — 

Here  light  was  brought  in  :  and  as  "Winter  was  just 
now  commencing  his  glass-painting  on  the  windows,  his 
ice  flower-pieces,  and  his  snow-fohage.  our  Parson  felt 
that  it  was  time  to  read  something  cold,  which  he  pleas- 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  199 

antly  named  his  cold  collation  ;  namely,  the  description  of 
some  unutterably  frosty  land.  On  the  present  occasion,  it 
was  the  winter  history  of  the  four  Russian  sailors  on  Nova 
Zembla.  I,  for  my  share,  do  often  in  summer,  when  the 
sultry  zephyr  is  inflating  the  flower-bells,  append  certain 
charts  and  sketches  of  Italy,  or  the  East,  as  additional 
landscapes  to  those  among  which  I  am  sitting.  And  yet 
to-night  he  further  took  up  the  Weekly  Chronicle  of  Flach- 
senfingen  ;  and  amid  the  bombshells,  pestilences,  famines, 
comets  with  long  tails,  and  the  roaring  of  all  the  Hell- 
floods  of  another  Thirty  Years'  War,  he  could  still  listen 
with  the  one  ear  towards  the  kitchen,  where  the  salad  for 
his  roast-duck  was  just  a-cutting. 

Good-night,  old  Fixlein !  I  am  tired.  May  kind 
Heaven  send  thee,  with  the  young  year  1794,  when  the 
Earth  shall  again  carry  her  people,  like  precious  night- 
moths,  on  leaves  and  flowers,  the  new  steeple-ball,  and  a 
thick,  handsome  —  boy,  to  boot ! 


,«M 


ELE\*EXTH    LETTER-BOX 


SriirSG  ;     I>YESTITURE  ;    AXD    ChILDBIKTH. 


'  HAVE  just  risen  from  a  singular  dream  ; 
but  the  foi-egoing  Box  makes  it  natural.  I 
dreamed  that  all  ^Yas  verdant,  all  full  of 
odors  ;  and  I  was  looking  up  at  a  steeple- 
ball  glittering  in  the  sun,  from  mv  station  in  the  window 
of  a  little  Avhite  garden-house,  my  eyelids  full  of  flower- 
pollen,  my  shoulders  full  of  thin  cherry-blossoms,  and 
my  ears  full  of  humming  from  the  neighboring  beehives. 
Then,  methought.  advancing  slowly  through  the  beds, 
came  the  Hukelum  Parson,  and  stept  into  the  garden- 
house,  and  solemnly  said  to  me  :  "  Honored  Sir,  my  wife 
has  just  brought  me  a  little  boy  ;  and  I  make  bold  to 
solicit  your  Honor  to  do  the  holy  office  for  the  same,  when 
it  shall  be  received  into  the  bosom  of  the  church." 

I  naturally  started  up,  and  there  was  —  Parson  Fixlein 
standing  bodily  at  my  bedside,  and  requesting  me  to  be 
godfather  ;  for  Thiennette  had  given  him  a  son  last  night 
about  one  o'clock.  The  continement  had  been  as  light 
and  happy  as  could  be  conceived  ;  for  this  reason,  that 
the  father  had.  some  months  before,  been  careful  to  pro- 
vide one  of  those  Klappersteins,  as  we  call  them,  which 
are  found  in  the  aerie  of  the  eagle,  and  therewith  to  alle- 
viate the  travail ;  for  this  stone  performs,  in  its  way,  all 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  20I 

the  service  which  the  bonnet  of  that  old  Minorite  monk 
in  Naples,  of  whom  Gorani  informs  us,  could  accomplish 
for  people  in  such  circumstances,  who  put  it  on 

—  I  might  vex  the  reader  still  longer  ;  but  I  willingly 
give  up,  and  show  him  how  the  matter  stood. 

Such  a  May  as  the  present  (of  1794)  Nature  has  not, 
in  the  memory  of  man  —  begun  ;  for  this  is  but  the  fif- 
teenth of  it.  People  of  reflection  have  for  centuries  been 
vexed  once  every  year,  that  our  German  singers  should 
indite  May-songs,  since  several  other  months  deserve 
such  a  poetical  night-music  much  better ;  and  I  myself 
have  often  gone  so  far  as  to  adopt  the  idiom  of  our 
market-women,  and  instead  of  May  butter,  to  say  June 
butter,  as  also  June,  March,  April  songs.  —  But  thou, 
kind  May  of  this  year,  thou  deservest  to  thyself  all  the 
songs  which  were  ever  made  on  thy  rude  namesakes  !  — 
By  Heaven !  when  I  now  issue  from  the  wavering,  check- 
ered acacia-grove  of  the  Castle-garden,  in  which  I  am 
writing  this  Chapter,  and  come  forth  into  the  broad,  living 
day,  and  look  up  to  the  warming  Heaven,  and  over  its 
Earth  budding  out  beneath  it,  —  the  Spring  rises  before 
me  like  a  vast  full  cloud,  with  a  splendor  of  blue  and 
green.  I  see  the  Sun  standing  amid  roses  in  the  western 
sky,  into  which  he  has  thrown  his  ray-brush,  wherewith 
he  has  to-day  been  painting  the  Earth ;  —  and  when  I 
look  round  a  little  in  our  picture-exhibition,  his  enamel- 
ling is  still  hot  on  the  mountains  ;  on  the  moist  chalk  of 
the  moist  Earth,  the  flowers  full  of  sap-colors  are  laid 
out  to  dry,  and  the  forget-me-not  with  miniature  colors  ; 
under  the  varnish  of  the  streams,  the  skyey  Painter  has 
pencilled  his  own  eye ;  and  the  clouds,  like  a  decoration- 
painter,  he  has  touched  off  with  wild  outlines  and  single 
tints ;  and  so  he  stands  at  the  border  of  the  Earth,  and 
9* 


202  LIFE    OF    QUIXTUS    FIXLEIX. 

loc^  back  upon  hi?  statelv  Spring,  whose  robe-folds  are 
valleys,  whose  breast-bouquet  is  giirdens,  ar.d  whose  blush 
is  a  vernal  eTening,  and  who,  when  she  arises,  shall  be  — 
Summer. 

But  to  proceed!  Everr  spring  —  and  especially  in 
such  a  spring  —  I  imitate  on  foot  our  birds  of  passage  ; 
and  trarel  oS  the  hypochondriacal  sediment  of  winter ; 
but  I  do  not  think  I  should  have  seen  even  the  steeple- 
ball  of  Hnkelunu  which  is  to  be  set  up  one  of  these  days, 
to  »y  nothing  of  the  Parson's  family,  had  not  I  happened 
to  be  visiting  the  Flachsenfingen  Superintendent  and 
Consistorialrath.  From  him  I  got  acquainted  with  Fix- 
lein'^s  history,  —  every  Candidatus  must  dehver  an  ac- 
count of  his  life  to  the  Consistorium.  —  and  with  his  still 
madder  petiticm  for  a  steeple-balL  I  observed,  with 
pleasure,  how  gayly  the  cob  was  diving  and  swashing 
about  in  his  duck-pool  and  milk-bath  of  life ;  and  forth- 
with determined  on  a  journey  to  his  shore.  It  is  singu- 
lar, that  is  to  say,  manlike,  that  when  we  have  for  years 
kept  prizing  and  describing  some  original  person  or  origi- 
nal book,  yet  the  moment  we  see  such,  they  anger  us ;  we 
would  have  them  fit  us  and  delight  us  in  all  points,  as  if 
any  originality  could  do  this  but  our  own. 

It  was  Saturday,  the  third  of  May.  when  I,  with  the 
Superintendent,  the  Senior  CapiivJi,  and  some  temporal 
Baths,  mounted  and  rc^ed  <^,  and  in  two  carriages  were 
driven  to  the  Parson's  door.  The  matter  was,  he  was 
not  yet — iuresiedy  and  to-morrow  this  was  to  be  done. 
I  little  thought,  while  we  whirled  by  the  white  espalier 
of  the  Castle-garden,  that  there  I  was  to  write  another 
book. 

I  still  see  the  Parson,  in  his  peruke-minever  and  head- 
case,  come  springing  to  the  coach-door  and  lead  us  out ; 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  203 

so  smiling  —  so  courteous  —  so  vain  of  the  disloaded 
freight,  and  so  attentive  to  it.  He  looked  as  if  in  the 
journey  of  life  he  had  never  once  put  on  the  travelling- 
gauze  of  Sorrow ;  Thiennette  again  seemed  never  to 
have  thrown  hers  back.  How  neat  was  everything  in 
the  house,  how  dainty,  decorated,  and  polished !  And  yet 
so  quiet,  without  the  cursed  alarm-ringing  of  servants' 
bells,  and  without  the  bass-drum  tumult  of  stair-pedalling. 
Whilst  the  gentlemen,  my  road-companions,  were  sitting 
in  state  in  the  upper  room,  I  flitted,  as  my  way  is,  like  a 
smell  over  the  whole  house,  and  my  path  led  me  through 
the  sitting-room  over  the  kitchen,  and  at  last  into  the 
churchyard  beside  the  house.  Good  Saturday!  I  will 
paint  thy  hours  as  I  may,  with  the  black  asphaltos  of  ink, 
on  the  tablets  of  other  souls !  In  the  sitting-room,  I 
lifted  from  the  desk  a  volume  gilt  on  the  back  and  edges, 
and  bearing  this  title  :  "  Holy  Sayings,  hy  Fixlein.  First 
Collection^'  And  as  I  looked  to  see  where  it  had  been 
printed,  the  Holy  Collection  turned  out  to  be  in  writing. 
I  handled  the  quills,  and  dipped  into  the  negro-black  of 
the  ink,  and  I  found  that  all  was  right  and  good.  With 
your  fluttering  gentlemen  of  letters,  who  hold  only  a 
department  of  the  foreign,  and  none  of  the  home  affairs 
nothing  (except  some  other  things  about  them)  can  be 
worse  than  their  ink  and  pens.  I  also  found  a  little  cop- 
perplate, to  which  I  shall  in  due  time  return. 

In  the  kitchen,  a  place  not  more  essential  for  the  writ- 
ing of  an  English  novel  than  for  the  acting  of  a  German 
one,  I  could  plant  myself  beside  Thiennette,  and  help  her 
to  blow  the  fire,  and  look  at  once  into  her  face  and  her 
burnino;  coals.  Thouorh  she  was  in  wedlock,  a  state  in 
which  white  roses  on  the  cheeks  are  changed  for  red 
ones,  and  young  women  are  similar  to  a  similitude  given 


204  LIFE    OF    QUIXTUS    FIXLEIN. 

in  mv  !No:e  ;  *  —  and  ahhough  the  blazing  wood  tlirew  a 
false  rojge  over  her.  I  guessed  how  pale  she  must  have 
been ;  and  my  sympathy  in  her  paleness  rose  still  higher 
at  the  thought  of  the  burden  which  Fate  had  now  not  so 
much  taken  from  her.  as  laid  in  her  arms  and  nearer  to 
her  heart.  In  truth,  a  man  must  never  have  reflected  on 
the  Creation-moment,  when  the  Universe  first  rose  fix)m 
the  bosom  of  an  Eternity,  if  he  does  not  view  with  philo- 
sophic reverence  a  woman,  whose  thread  of  life  a  secret, 
all- wondrous  Hand  is  spinning  to  a  second  thread,  and 
who  veils  within  her  the  transition  firom  2sothingness  to 
Existence,  firom  Eternity  to  time ;  —  but  still  less  can  a 
man  have  any  heart  of  flesh,  if  his  soul,  in  presence  of  a 
woman,  who,  to  an  unknown,  unseen  being,  is  sacrificing 
more  than  we  will  sacrifice  when  it  is  seen  and  known, 
namely,  her  nights,  her  joys,  often  her  life,  does  not  bow 
lower,  and  with  deeper  emotion,  than  in  presence  of  a 
whole  nun-orchestra  on  their  Sahara-desert ;  —  and  worse 
than  either  is  the  man  for  whom  his  own  mother  has  not 
made  all  other  mothers  venerable. 

~  It  is  little  serviceable  to  thee,  poor  Thiexmette," 
thought  I,  **  that  now,  when  thy  bitter  cup  of  sickness  is 
made  to  run  over,  thou  most  have  loud  festivities  come 
crowding  round  thee."*  I  meant  the  Investiture  and  the 
Ball-raising.  My  rank,  the  diploma  of  which  the  reader 
will  find  stitched  in  with  the  Dog-post-days,  and  which 
had  formerly  been  hers,  brought  about  my  ears  a  host  of 
repelling,  embarrassed,  wavering  tides  of  address  from 
her;  which  people,  to  whom  they  have  once  belonged, 
are  at  all  times  apt  to  parade  before  superiors  or  inferi- 
ors, and  which  it  now  cost  me  no  hltle  trouble  to  disperse. 

*  To  tiie  Spring,  samelv,  which  b^;ms  with  six)w-dro|e,  and  ends 
with  Toees  and  {Mnks. 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  205 

Through  the  whole  Saturday  and  Sunday  I  could  never 
get  into  the  right  track  either  with  her  or  him,  till  the 
other  guests  were  gone.  As  for  the  mother,  she  acted, 
like  obscure  ideas,  powerfully  and  constantly,  but  out  of 
view ;  this  arose  in  part  from  her  idolatrous  fear  of  us ; 
and  partly  also  from  a  slight  shade  of  care  (probably 
springing  from  the  state  of  her  daughter),  which  had 
spread  over  her  like  a  little  cloud. 

I  cruised  about,  so  long  as  the  moon-crescent  glim- 
mered in  the  sky,  over  the  churchyard ;  and  softened  my 
fantasies,  which  are  at  any  rate  too  prone  to  paint  with 
the  brown  of  crumbhng  mummies,  not  only  by  the  red  of 
twilight,  but  also  by  reflecting  how  easily  our  eyes  and  our 
hearts  can  become  reconciled  even  to  the  ruins  of  Death ; 
a  reflection  which  the  Schoolmaster,  whistling  as  he  ar- 
ranged the  charnel-house  for  the  morrow,  and  the  Parson's 
maid  singing,  as  she  reaped  away  the  grass  from  the  graves, 
readily  enough  suggested  to  me.  And  why  should  not 
this  habituation  to  all  forms  of  Fate  in  the  other  world, 
also,  be  a  gift  reserved  for  us  in  our  nature  by  the  bounty 
of  our  great  Preserver  ?  —  I  perused  the  gravestones ; 
and  I  think  even  now  that  Superstition  *  is  right  in  con- 
necting with  the  reading  of  such  things  a  loss  oi  memory  ; 
at  all  events,  one  does  forget  a  thousand  things  belonging 
to  this  world 

The  Investiture  on  Sunday  (whose  Gospel,  of  the  Good 
Shepherd,  suited  well  with  the  ceremony)  I  must  despatch 
in  few  words ;  because  nothing  truly  sublime  can  bear  to 
be  treated  of  in  many.  However,  I  shall  impart  the 
most  memorable  circumstances,  when  I  say  that  there 
was  —  drinking  (in  the  Parsonage),  —  music-making  (in 

*  This  Christian  superstition  is  not  only  a  Kabbinical,  but  also  a 
Boman  one.     Clctro  de  Seneciute. 


2o6  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

the  Choir),  —  reading  (of  the  Presentation  bj  the  Sen- 
ior, and  of  the  Ratification-rescript  by  the  lay  Rath), — 
and  preacliing,  by  the  Consistoriah'ath,  who  took  the  soul- 
curer  by  the  hand,  and  presented,  made  over,  and  guar- 
anteed him  to  the  congregation,  and  them  to  him.  Fixlein 
felt  that  he  was  departing  as  a  high-priest  from  the 
church  which  he  had  entered  as  a  country  parson,  and 
all  day  he  had  not  once  the  heart  to  ban.  When  a  man 
is  treated  with  solemnity,  he  looks  upon  himself  as  a 
higher  nature,  and  goes  through  his  solemn  feasts  de- 
voutly. 

This  indenturing,  this  monastic  profession,  our  Head- 
Rabbis  and  Lodge-masters  (our  Superintendents)  have 
usually  a  taste  for  putting  off  till  once  the  pastor  has  been 
some  years  ministering  among  the  people,  to  whom  they 
hereby  present  him  ;  as  the  early  Christians  frequently 
postponed  their  consecration  and  investiture  to  Christian- 
ity, their  baptism  namely,  till  the  day  when  they  died. 
Nay,  I  do  not  even  think  this  clerical  Investiture  would 
lose  much  of  its  usefulness,  if  it  and  the  declaring-vacant 
of  the  office  were  reserved  for  the  same  day ;  the  rather, 
as  this  usefulness  consists  entirely  in  two  items ;  what  the 
Superintendent  and  his  Raths  can  eat,  and  what  they  can 
pocket. 

Not  till  towards  evening  did  the  Parson  and  I  get  ac- 
quainted. The  Investiture  officials  and  elevation  pulley- 
men  had,  throughout  the  whole  evening,  been  very  vio- 
lently —  breathing.  I  mean  thus  ;  as  these  gentlemen 
could  not  but  be  aware,  by  the  most  ancient  theories  and  the 
latest  experiments,  that  air  w^as  nothing  else  than  a  sort 
of  rarefied  and  exploded  water,  it  became  easy  for  them 
to  infer,  that,  conversely,  water  was  nothing  else  than  a 
denser  sort  of  air.     Wine-drinking,  therefore,  is  nothing 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  207 

else  but  the  breathing  of  an  air  pressed  together  into 
proper  spissitude,  and  sprinkled  over  with  a  few  perfumes. 
Now,  in  our  days,  by  clerical  persons  too  much  (fluid) 
breath  can  never  be  inhaled  through  the  mouth  ;  seeing 
the  dignity  of  their  station  excludes  them  from  that 
breathing  through  the  smaller  pores  which  Abernethy  so 
highly  recommends  under  the  name  of  air-hath  ;  and  can 
the  Gullet  in  their  case  be  aught  else  than  door-neighbor 
to  the  Windpipe,  the  consonant  and  fellow-shoot  of  the 
Windpipe?  —  I  am  running  astray;  I  meant  to  signify 
that  I  this  evening  had  adopted  the  same  opinion  ;  only 
that  I  used  air  or  ether,  not  like  the  rest  for  loud  laugh- 
ter, but  for  the  more  quiet  contemplation  of  life  in  general. 
I  even  shot  forth  at  my  gossip  certain  speeches  which  be- 
trayed devoutness.  These  he  at  first  took  for  jests,  being 
aware  that  I  was  from  Court,  and  of  quality.  But  the 
concave  mirror  of  the  wine-mist  at  length  suspended  the 
images  of  my  soul,  enlarged  and  embodied  like  spiritual 
shapes,  in  the  air  before  me.  —  Life  shaded  itself  off  to 
my  eyes  like  a  hasty  summer  night,  which  we  little  fire- 
flies shoot  across  with  transient  gleam  ;  —  I  said  to  him 
that  man  must  turn  himself  like  the  leaves  of  the  great 
mallow,  at  the  different  day-seasons  of  his  life,  now  to  the 
rising  sun,  now  to  the  setting,  now  to  the  night,  towards 
the  Earth  and  its  graves ;  —  I  said,  the  omnipotence  of 
Goodness  was  driving  us  and  the  centuries  of  the  world 
towards  the  gates  of  the  City  of  God,  as,  according  to 
Euler,  the  resistance  of  the  Ether  leads  the  circling 
Earth  towards  the  Sun,  &c.,  '&jQ,. 

On  the  strength  of  these  entremets,  he  considered  me 
the  first  theologian  of  his  age ;  and  had  he  been  obliges 
to  go  to  war,  would  previously  have  taken  my  advice  on 
the  matter,  as  belligerent  powers  were  wont  of  old  from 


208  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

the  theologians  of  the  Reformation.  I  hide  not  from  my- 
self, however,  that  what  preachers  call  vanity  of  the  world 
is  something  altogether  different  fi-om  what  philosophy  so 
calls.  When  I,  moreover,  signified  to  him  that  I  was  not 
ashamed  to  be  an  Author;  but  had  a  turn  for  working  up 
this  and  the  other  biography ;  and  that  I  had  got  a  sight 
of  his  Life  in  the  hands  of  the  Superintendent ;  and  might 
be  in  case  to  prepare  a  printed  one  therefrom,  if  so  were 
he  would  assist  me  with  here  and  there  a  tint  of  flesh- 
color,  —  then  was  my  silk,  which,  alas  !  not  only  isolates 
one  from  electric  fire,  but  also  from  a  kindlier  sort  of  it, 
the  only  grate  which  rose  between  his  arms  and  me ;  for, 
like  the  most  part  of  poor  country  parsons,  it  was  not  in 
his  power  to  forget  the  rank  of  any  man.  or  to  vivify  his 
own  on  a  higher  one.  He  said  :  ••  He  would  acknowledge 
it  with  veneration,  if  I  should  mention  him  in  print ;  but 
he  was  much  afraid  his  life  was  too  common  and  too  poor 
for  a  biography."  Nevertheless,  he  opened  me  the  drawer 
of  his  Letter-boxes,  and  said,  perhaps  he  had  hereby 
been  paving  the  way  for  me. 

The  main  point,  however,  was,  he  hoped  that  his  Erra- 
ta, his  Exercitationes^  and  his  Letters  on  the  Bobber-  Castle^ 
if  I  should  previously  send  forth  a  Life  of  the  Author, 
might  be  better  received  ;  and  that  it  would  be  much  the 
same  as  if  I  accompanied  them  with  a  Preface. 

In  short,  when  on  Monday  the  other  dignitaries  with 
their  nimbus  of  splendor  had  dissipated,  I  alone,  like  a 
precipitate,  abode  with  him  ;  and  am  still  abiding,  that  is, 
from  the  fifth  of  May  (the  Public  should  take  the  Alma- 
nac of  1794,  and  keep  it  open  beside  them)  to  the  fif- 
teenth ;  to-day  is  Thursday,  to-morrow  is  the  sixteenth 
and  Friday,  when  comes  the  Spinat-Kirmes,  or  Spinage- 
Wake,  as  they  call  it,  and  the  uplifting  of  the  steeple-ball. 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS   FIXLEIN.  209 

which  I  just  purposed  to  await  before  I  went.  Now, 
however,  I  do  not  go  so  soon  ;  for  on  Sunday  I  have  to 
assist  at  the  baptismal  ceremony,  as  baptismal  agent  for 
my  little  future  godson.  Whoever  pays  attention  to  me, 
and  keeps  the  Almanac  open,  may  readily  guess  why  the 
christening  is  put  off  till  Sunday  ;  for  it  is  that  memor- 
able Cantata-Sunday,  which  once,  for  its  mad,  narcotic 
hemlock-virtues,  was  of  importance  in  our  History  ;  but  is 
now  so  only  for  the  fair  betrothment,  which  after  two 
years  we  mean  to  celebrate  with  a  baptism. 

Truly  it  is  not  in  my  power  —  for  want  of  colors  and 
presses  —  to  paint  or  print  upon  my  paper  the  soft,  balmy 
flower-garland  of  a  fortnight  which  has  here  wound  itself 
about  my  sickly  life  ;  but  with  a  single  day  I  shall  at- 
tempt it.  Man,  I  know  well,  cannot  prognosticate  either 
his  joys  or  his  sorrows,  still  less  repeat  them,  either  in 
living  or  writing. 

The  black  hour  of  coffee  has  gold  in  its  mouth  for  us 
and  honey ;  here,  in  the  morning  coolness,  we  are  all 
gathered  ;  we  maintain  popular  conversation,  that  so  the 
parsoness  and  the  gardeneress  may  be  able  to  take  share 
in  it.  The  morning  service  in  the  church,  where  often 
the  whole  people  *  are  sitting  and  singing,  divides  us. 
While  the  bell  is  sounding,  I  march  with  my  writing-gear 
into  the  singing  Castle-garden  ;  and  seat  myself  in  the 
fresh  acacia-grove,  at  the  dewy  two-legged  table.  Fix- 
lein's  Letter-boxes  I  keep  by  me  in  my  pocket ;  and  I 
have  only  to  look  and  abstract  from  his  what  can  be  of 
use  in  my  own.  —  Strange  enough !  so  easily  do  we  for- 
get a  thing  in  describing  it,  I  really  did  not  recollect  for  a 
moment  that  I  am  now  sitting  at  the  very  grove-table  of 
which  I  speak,  and  writing  all  this.  — 

*  For,  according  to  the  Jurists,  fifteen  persons  make  a  people. 

N 


210  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

My  gossip  in  the  mean  time  is  also  laboring  for  the 
world.  Ills  study  is  a  sort  of  sacristy,  and  his  printing- 
press  a  pulpit,  wherefrom  he  preaches  to  all  men  ;  for  an 
Author  is  the  Town-chaplain  of  the  Universe.  A  man 
who  is  making  a  book  will  scarcely  hang  himself;  all 
rich  lords'-sons,  therefore,  should  labor  for  the  press ;  for, 
in  that  case,  when  you  awake  too  early  in  bed,  you  have 
always  a  plan,  an  aim,  and  therefore  a  cause  before  you 
why  you  should  get  out  of  it.  Better  off,  too,  is  the  author 
who  collects  rather  than  invents,  —  for  the  latter  with  its 
eating  fire  calcines  the  heart ;  I  praise  the  Antiquary,  the 
Heraldist,  Note-maker,  Compiler ;  I  esteem  the  Title- 
perch  (a  fish  called  Perca-Diagramma,  because  of  the 
letters  on  its  scales),  and  the  Printer  (a  chafer,  called 
ScurahcBus  Typographus,  which  eats  letters  in  the  bark 
of  fir),  —  neither  of  them  needs  any  greater  or  fairer 
arena  in  the  world  than  a  piece  of  rag-paper,  or  any  other 
laying  apparatus  than  a  pointed  pencil,  wherewith  to  lay 
his  four-and-twenty  letter-eggs.  —  In  regard  to  the  cata- 
logue raisomie,  which  my  gossip  is  now  drawing  up  of 
German  Errata,  I  have  several  times  suggested  to  him, 
"  that  it  were  good  if  he  extended  his  researches  in  one 
respect,  and  revised  the  rule  by  which  it  has  been  com- 
puted, that,  e.  g.  for  a  hundred-weight  of  pica  black-letter, 
four  hundred  and  fifty  semicolons,  three  hundred  periods, 
&c.,  are  required;  and  to  recount,  and  see  whether,  in 
Political  writings  and  Dedications,  the  fifty  notes  of  admi- 
ration for  a  hundred-weight  of  pica  black-letter  were  not 
far  too  small  an  allowance,  and  if  so,  what  the  real  quan- 
tity was." 

Several  days  he  wrote  nothing ;  but  wrapped  himself 
in  the  slough  of  his  parson's-cloak ;  and  so  in  his  canoni- 
cals, beside  the  Schoolmaster,  put  the  few  A-b-c  shooters 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  211 

which  were  not,  like  forest-shooters,  absent  on  furlough 
by  reason  of  the  spring,  through  their  platoon  firing  in 
the  Hornbook.  He  never  did  more  than  his  duty,  but 
also  never  less.  It  brought  a  soft,  benignant  warmth 
over  his  heart,  to  think  that  he,  who  had  once  ducked 
under  a  School-inspectorship,  was  now  one  himself. 

About  ten  o'clock  we  meet  from  our  different  museums, 
and  examine  the  village,  especially  the  Biographical  fur- 
niture and  holy  places,  which  I  chance  that  morning  to 
have  had  under  my  pen  or  pentagraph ;  because  I  look 
at  them  with  more  interest  after  my  description  than 
before  it. 

Next  comes  dinner.  — 

After  the  concluding  grace,  which  is  too  long,  we  both 
of  us  set  to  entering  the  charitable  subsidies  and  relig- 
ious donations,  which  our  parishioners  have  remitted  to 
the  sinking  or  rather  rising  fund  of  the  church-box  for 
the  purchase  of  the  new  steeple-globe,  into  two  ledgers  ; 
the  one  of  these,  with  the  names  of  the  subscribers,  or 
(in  case  they  have  subscribed  for  their  children)  with 
their  children's  names  also,  is  to  be  inurned  in  a  leaden 
capsule,  and  preserved  in  the  steeple-ball ;  the  other  will 
remain  below  among  the  parish  Registers.  You  cannot 
fancy  what  contributions  the  ambition  of  getting  into  the 
Ball  brings  us  in ;  I  declare,  several  peasants,  who  had 
given  and  well  once  already,  contributed  again  when  they 
had  baptisms ;  must  not  little  Hans  be  in  the  Ball  too  ? 

After  this  book-keeping  by  double  entry,  my  gossip 
took  to  engraving  on  copper.  He  had  been  so  happy  as 
to  elicit  the  discovery,  that,  from  a  certain  stroke  resem- 
bling an  inverted  Latin  S,  the  capital  letters  of  our  Ger- 
man Chancery-hand,  beautiful  and  intertwisted  as  you 
see  them  stand  in  Law-deeds  and  Letters-of-nobility,  may 
every  one  of  them  be  composed  and  spun  out. 


212  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

"  Before  you  can  count  sixty,"  said  he  to  me,  "  I  take 
my  fundamental-stroke  and  make  you  any  letter  out  of 
it." 

I  merely  inverted  this  fundamental-stroke,  that  is,  gave 
him  a  German  S,  and  counted  sixty  till  he  had  it  done. 
This  line  of  beauty,  when  once  it  has  been  twisted  and 
flourished  into  all  the  capitals,  he  purposes,  by  copper- 
plates which  he  is  himself  engraving,  to  make  more 
common  for  the  use  of  Chanceries ;  and  I  may  take 
upon  me  to  give  the  Russian,  the  Prussian,  and  a  few 
other  smaller  Courts,  hopes  of  proof  impressions  from 
his  hand  ;  to  under-secretaries  they  are  indispensable. 

Now  comes  evening ;  and  it  is  time  for  us  both,  here 
forking  about  with  our  fruit-hooks  on  the  literary  Tree  of 
Knowledge,  at  the  risk  of  our  necks,  to  clamber  down 
again  into  the  meadow-flowers  and  pasturages  of  rural 
joy.  We  wait,  however,  till  the  busy  Thiennette,  whom 
we  are  now  to  receive  into  our  communion,  has  no  more 
walks  to  take  but  the  one  between  us.  Then  slowly  we 
stept  along  (the  sick  lady  was  weak)  through  the  office- 
houses  ;  that  is  to  say,  through  stalls  and  their  popula- 
tion, and  past  a  horrid  lake  of  ducks,  and  past  a  little 
milk-pond  of  carps,  to  both  of  which  colonies,  I  and  the 
rest,  like  princes,  gave  bread,  seeing  we  had  it  in  view, 
on  the  Sunday  after  the  christening,  to  —  take  them  for 
bread  for  ourselves. 

The  sky  is  still  growing  kindlier  and  redder,  the  swal- 
lows aAd  the  blossom-trees  louder,  the  house-shadows 
broader,  and  men  more  happy.  The  clustering  blossoms 
of  the  acacia-grove  hang  down  over  our  cold  collation ; 
and  the  ham  is  not  stuck  (which  always  vexes  me)  with 
flowers,  but  beshaded  with  them  from  a  distance 

And  now  the  deeper  evening  and  the  nightingale  con- 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  213 

?pire  to  soften  me ;  ^nd  I  soften  in  my  turn  the  mild 
beings  round  me,  especially  the  pale  Thiennette,  to 
whom,  or  to  whose  heart,  after  the  apoplectic  crushings 
of  a  down-pressed  youth,  the  most  violent  pulses  of  joy 
are  heavier  than  the  movements  of  pensive  sadness. 
And  thus  beautifully  runs  our  pure  transparent  life 
along,  under  the  blooming  curtains  of  May ;  and  in  our 
modest  pleasure,  we  look  with  timidity  neither  behind  us 
nor  before ;  as  people  who  are  lifting  treasure  gaze  not 
round  at  the  road  they  came,  or  the  road  they  are  going. 

So  pass  our  days.  To-day,  however,  it  was  dijQferent ;  by 
this  time,  usually,  the  evening  meal  is  over ;  and  the 
Shock  has  got  the  osseous-preparation  of  our  supper  be- 
tween his  jaws ;  but  to-night  I  am  still  sitting  here  alone 
in  the  garden,  writing  the  Eleventh  Letter-Box,  and 
peeping  out  every  instant  over  the  meadows,  to  see  if  my 
gossip  is  not  coming. 

For  he  is  gone  to  town,  to  bring  a  whole  magazine  of 
spiceries  ;  his  coat -pockets  are  wide.  Nay,  it  is  certain 
enough  that  oftentimes  he  brings  home  with  him,  simply 
in  his  coat-pocket,  considerable  flesh-tithes  from  his  Guar- 
dian, at  whose  house  he  alights ;  though  truly,  intercourse 
with  the  polished  world  and  city,  and  the  refinement  of 
manners  thence  arising  —  for  he  calls  on  the  bookseller, 
on  school-colleagues,  and  several  respectable  shop-keep- 
ers —  does,  much  more  than  flesh-fetching,  form  the 
object  of  these  journeys  to  the  city.  This  morning  he 
appointed  me  regent-head  of  the  house,  and  delivered 
me  the  fasces  and  curule  chair.  I  sat  the  whole  day  be- 
side the  young,  pale  mother;  and  could  not  but  think, 
simply  because  the  husband  had  left  me  there  as  his  rep- 
resentative, that  I  liked  the  fair  soul  better.  She  had  to 
take  dark  colors,  and  paint  out  for  me  the  winter  land- 


214  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

scape  and  ice  region  of  her  sorrow-wasted  youth ;  but 
often,  contrary  to  my  intention,  by  some  simple  elegiac 
word,  I  made  her  still  eye  wet ;  for  the  too  full  heart, 
which  had  been  crushed  with  other  than  sentimental 
woes,  overflowed  at  the  smallest  pressure.  A  hundred 
times  in  the  recital  I  was  on  the  point  of  saying :  "  O  yes, 
it  was  with  winter  that  your  life  began,  and  the  course 
of  it  has  resembled  winter!"  —  Windless,  cloudless  day! 
Three  more  words  about  thee  the  world  will  still  not  take 
amiss  from  me ! 

I  advanced  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  heart-central-fire 
of  the  woman ;  and  at  last  they  mildly  broke  forth  in 
censure  of  the  Parson ;  the  best  wives  will  complain  of 
their  husbands  to  a  stranger,  without  in  the  smallest 
liking  them  the  less  on  that  account.  The  mother  and 
the  wife,  during  dinner,  accused  him  of  buying  lots  at 
every  book-auction ;  and,  in  truth,  in  such  places,  he 
does  strive  and  bid,  not  so  much  for  good  or  for  bad 
books  —  or  old  ones  —  or  new  ones  —  or  such  as  he  likes 
to  read  —  or  any  sort  of  favorite  books  —  but  simply  for 
books.  The  mother  blamed  especially  his  squandering  so 
much  on  copperplates  ;  yet  some  hours  after,  when  the 
Schultheis,  or  Mayor,  who  wrote  a  beautiful  hand,  came 
in  to  subscribe  for  the  steeple-ball,  she  pointed  out  to 
him  how  finely  her  son  could  engrave,  and  said  that  it 
was  well  worth  while  to  spend  a  groschen  or  two  on  such 
capitals  as  these. 

They  then  handed  me — for  when  owe  women  are  in 
the  way  of  a  full,  open-hearted  effusion,  they  like  (only 
you  must  not  turn  the  stop-cock  of  inquiry)  to  pour  out 
the  whole  —  a  ring-case,  in  which  he  kept  a  Chamber- 
lain's key  that  he  had  found,  and  asked  me  if  I  knew 
who  had  lost  it.     Who  could  know  such  a  thing,  when 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  215 

there  are  almost  more  Chamberlains  than  picklocks 
among  us  ?  — 

At  last  I  took  heart,  and  asked  after  the  little  toy- 
press  of  the  drowned  son,  which  hitherto  I  had  sought  for 
in  vain  over  all  the  house.  Fixlein  himself  had  inquired 
for  it,  with  as  little  success.  Thiennette  gave  the  old 
mother  a  persuading  look  full  of  love  ;  and  the  latter  led 
me  up-stairs  to  an  outstretched  hoop-petticoat,  covering 
the  poor  press  as  with  a  dome.  On  the  way  thither,  the 
mother  told  me  she  kept  it  hid  from  her  son  because  the 
recollection  of  his  brother  would  pain  him.  When  this 
deposit-chest  of  Time  (the  lock  had  fallen  off)  was  laid 
open  to  me,  and  I  had  looked  into  the  little  charnel-house, 
with  its  wrecks  of  a  childhke,  sportful  Past,  I,  without 
saying  a  word,  determined,  some  time  ere  I  went  away,  to 
unpack  these  playthings  of  the  lost  boy  before  his  surviv- 
ing brother.  Can  there  be  aught  finer  than  to  look  at 
these  ash-buried,  deep-sunk,  Herculanean  ruins  of  child- 
hood, now  dug  up  and  in  the  open  air  ? 

Thiennette  sent  twice  to  ask  me  w^hether  he  was  come. 
He  and  she,  precisely  because  they  do  not  give  their  love 
the  weakening  expression  of  phrases,  but  the  strengthen- 
ing one  of  actions,  have  a  boundless  feeling  of  it  towards 
one  another.  Some  wedded  pairs  eat  each  others  lips 
and  hearts  and  love  away  by  kisses;  as  in  Rome,  the 
statues  of  Christ  (by  Angelo)  have  lost  their  feet  by 
the  same  process  of  kissing,  and  got  leaden  ones  instead ; 
in  other  couples,  again,  you  may  see,  by  mere  inspection, 
the  number  of  their  conflagrations  and  eruptions,  as  in 
Vesuvius  you  can  discover  his,  of  which  there  are  now 
forty-three  ;  but  in  these  two  beings  rose  the  Greek  fire 
of  a  moderate  and  everlasting  love,  and  gave  warmth 
without  casting  forth  sparks,  and  flamed  straight  up  with- 


2l6 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 


out  crackling.  The  evening-red  is  flowing  back  more 
magically  from  the  windows  of  the  gardener's  cottage 
into  my  grove ;  and  I  feel  as  if  I  must  say  to  Destiny : 
"  Hast  thou  a  sharp  sorrow,  then  throw  it  rather  into  my 
breast,  and  strike  not  with  it  three  good  souls,  who  are 
too  happy  not  to  bleed  by  it,  and  too  sequestered  in  their 
little  dim  village  not  to  shrink  back  at  the  thunderbolt 
which   hurries   a  stricken   spirit  from  its  earthly  dwell- 

ing." 

Thou  good  Fixlein !  Here  comes  he  hurrying  over  the 
parsonage-green.  "What  languishing  looks  full  of  love 
already  rest  in  the  eye  of  thy  Thiennette !  —  What  news 
wilt  thou  bring  us  to-night  from  the  town  !  —  How  will 
the  ascending  steeple-ball  refresh  thy  soul  to-morrow !  — 


TWELFTH    LETTER-BOX. 


Steeple-Ball  Ascension.  —  The  Toy-Pkess. 


OW,  on  this  sixteenth  of  May,  the  old  steeple- 
ball  was  twisted  off  from  the  Hukelum  stee- 
ple, and  a  new  one  put  on  in  its  stead,  will  I 
now  describe  to  my  best  ability ;  but  in  that 
simple  historical  style  of  the  Ancients,  which,  for  great 
events,  is  perhaps  the  most  suitable. 

At  a  very  early  hour,  a  coach  arrived,  containing 
Messrs.  Court- Guilder  Zeddel  and  Locksmith  Wachser, 
and  the  new  Peter's-cupola  of  the  steeple.  Towards 
eight  o'clock  the  community,  consisting  of  subscribers  to 
the  Globe,  was  visibly  collecting.  A  little  later  came  the 
Lord  Dragoon  Rittmeister  von  Auf  hammer,  as  Patron 
of  the  church  and  steeple,  attended  by  Mr.  Church- 
Inspector  Streichert.  Hereupon  my  Reverend  Cousin 
Fixlein  and  I  repaired,  with  the  other  persons  whom  I 
have  already  named,  into  the  Church,  and  there  celebra- 
ted, before  innumerable  hearers,  a  week-day  prayer-ser- 
vice. Directly  afterwards,  my  Reverend  Friend  made 
his  appearance  above  in  the  pulpit,  and  endeavored  to 
deliver  a  speech  which  might  correspond  to  the  solemn 
transaction  ;  —  and  immediately  thereafter,  he  read  aloud 
the  names  of  the  patrons  and  charitable  souls,  by  whose 
donations  the  Ball  had  been  put  together ;  and  showed  to 
10 


2l8  LIKE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

the  congregation  the  leaden  box  in  which  they  were  spe- 
cially recorded ;  observing  that  the  book  from  which  he 
had  recited  them  was  to  be  reposited  in  the  Parish  Reg- 
ister-office. Next  he  held  it  necessary  to  thank  them  and 
God,  that  he,  above  his  deserts,  had  been  chosen  as  the 
instrument  and  undertaker  of  such  a  work.  The  whole 
he  concluded  with  a  short  prayer  for  Mr.  Stechmann  the 
Slater  (who  was  already  hanging  on  the  outside  on  the 
steeple,  and  loosening  the  old  shaft)  ;  and  entreated  that 
he  might  not  break  his  neck,  or  any  of  his  members.  A 
short  hymn  was  then  sung,  which  the  most  of  those 
assembled  without  the  church-doors  sang  along  with  us, 
looking  up  at  the  same  time  to  the  steeple. 

All  of  us  now  proceeded  out  likewise  ;  and  the  dis- 
carded ball,  as  it  were  the  amputated  cock's-comb  of 
the  church,  was  lowered  down  and  untied.  Church- 
Inspector  Streichert  drew  a  leaden  case  from  the  crumb- 
ling ball,  which  my  Reverend  Friend  put  into  his  pocket, 
purposing  to  read  it  at  his  convenience ;  I,  however,  said 
to  some  peasants :  "  See,  thus  will  your  names  also  be 
preserved  in  the  new  Ball,  and  when,  after  long  years,  it 
shall  be  taken  down,  the  box  lies  within  it,  and  the  then 
parson  becomes  acquainted  with  you  all."  —  And  now 
was  the  new  steeple-globe,  with  the  leaden  cup  in  which 
lay  the  names  of  the  by-standers,  at  length  full-laden,  so 
to  speak,  and  saturated,  and  fixed  to  the  pulley-rope ;  — 
and  so  did  this  the  whilom  cupping-glass  of  the  commu- 
nity ascend  aloft "> 

By  Heaven !  the  unadorned  style  is  here  a  thing  be- 
yond my  power :  for  when  the  Ball  moved,  swung, 
mounted,  there  rose  a  drumming  in  the  centre  of  the 
steeple ;  and  the  Schoolmaster,  who,  till  now,  had  looked 
down  through  a  sounding-hole  directed  towards  the  con- 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  219 

gregation,  now  stepped  out  with  a  trumpet  at  a  side  sound- 
ing-hole, which  the  mounting  Ball  was  not  to  cross.  — 
But  when  the  whole  Church  rung  and  pealed,  the  nearer 
the  capital  approached  its  crown,  —  and  when  the  Slater 
clutched  it  and  turned  it  round,  and  happily  incorporated 
the  spike  of  it,  and  delivered  down,  between  Heaven  and 
Earth,  and  leaning  on  the  Ball,  a  Topstone-speech  to  this 
and  all  of  us,  —  and  when  my  gossip's  eyes,  in  his  rap- 
ture at  being  Parson  on  this  great  day,  were  running 
over,  and  the  tears  trickling  down  his  priestly  garment ; 
—  I  believe  I  was  the  only  man  —  as  his  mother  was 
the  only  woman  —  whose  souls  a  common  grief  laid 
hold  of  to  press  them  even  to  bleeding ;  for  I  and  the 
mother  had  yesternight,  as  I  shall  tell  more  largely  after- 
wards, discovered  in  the  little  chest  of  the  drowned  boy, 
from  a  memorial  in  his  father's  hand,  that,  on  the  day 
after  the  morrow,  on  Cantata-Sunday  and  his  baptismal 
Sunday,  he  would  be  —  two-and-thirty-years  of  age. 
"  Oh  ! "  thought  I,  while  I  looked  at  the  blue  heaven,  the 
green  graves,  the  glittering  ball,  the  weeping  priest,  "so, 
at  all  times,  stands  poor  man  with  bandaged  eyes  before 
thy  sharp  sword,  incomprehensible  Destiny  !  And  when 
thou  drawest  it  and  brandishest  it  aloft,  he  listens  with 
pleasure  to  the  whizzing  of  the  stroke  before  it  falls  ! "  — 
Last  night  I  was  aware  of  it ;  but  to  the  reader,  whom 
I  was  preparing  for  it  afar  oif,  I  would  tell  nothing  of  the 
mournful  news,  that,  in  the  press  of  the  dead  brother,  I 
had  found  an  old  Bible  which  the  boys  had  used  at  school, 
with  a  white  blank  leaf  in  it,  on  which  the  father  had  writ- 
ten down  the  dates  of  his  children's  birth.  And  even 
this  it  was  that  raised  in  thee,  thou  poor  mother,  the 
shade  of  sorrow  which  of  late  we  have  been  attributing 
to  smaller  causes ;  and  thy  heart  was  still  standing  amid 


220  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

the  rain,  which  seemed  to  us  ah-eady  past  over  and 
changed  into  a  rainbow  !  —  Out  of  love  to  him,  she  had 
yearly  told  one  falsehood,  and  concealed  his  age.  By  ex- 
treme good  luck,  he  had  not  been  present  when  the  press 
was  opened.  I  still  purpose,  after  this  fatal  Sunday,  to 
surprise  him  with  the  party-colored  relics  of  his  child- 
hood, and  so  of  these  old  Christmas-presents  to  make  him 
new  ones.  In  the  mean  while,  if  I  and  his  mother  can 
but  follow  him  incessantly,  like  fishhook-floats,  and  foot 
clogs,  through  to-morrow  and  next  day,  that  no  murder- 
ous accident  lift  aside  the  curtain  from  his  birth-certifi- 
cate, —  all  may  yet  be  well.  For  now,  in  truth,  to  his 
eyes,  this  birthday,  in  the  metamorphotic  mirror  of  his 
superstitious  imagination,  and  behind  the  magnifying  magic 
vapor  of  his  present  joys,  would   burn  forth  like  a  red 

death-warrant But  besides  all  this,  the  leaf  of  the 

Bible  is  now  sitting  higher  than  any  of  us,  namely,  in  the 
new  steeple-ball,  into  which  I  this  morning  prudently  in- 
troduced it.    Properly  speaking,  there  is  indeed  no  danger. 


THIRTEENTH    LETTER-BOX. 
Christening. 


0-DAY  is  that  stupid  Cantata-Sunday ;  but 
nothing  now  remains  of  it  save  an  hour.  —  By 
Heaven !  in  right  spirits  were  we  all  to-day. 
I  believe  I  have  drunk  as  faithfully  as  another. 
—  In  truth,  one  should  be  moderate  in  all  things,  in 
writing,  in  drinking,  in  rejoicing ;  and  as  we  lay  straws 
into  the  honey  for  our  bees,  that  they  may  not  drown  in 
their  sugar,  so  ought  one  at  all  times  to  lay  a  few  firm 
Principles  and  twigs  from  the  tree  of  Knowledge  into 
the  Syrup  of  life,  instead  of  those  same  bee-straws,  that 
so  one  may  cling  thereto,  and  not  drown  like  a  rat.  But 
now  I  do  purpose  in  earnest  to  —  write  (and  also  live) 
with  steadfastness ;  and  therefore,  that  I  may  record 
the  christening  ceremony  with  greater  coolness,  —  to  be- 
sprinkle my  fire  with  the  night-air,  and  to  roam  out  for 
an  hour  into  the  blossom-and-wave-embroidered  night, 
where  a  lukewarm  breath  of  air,  intoxicated  with  soft 
odors,  is  sinking  down  from  the  blossom-peaks  to  the  low- 
bent  flowers,  and  roaming  over  the  meadows,  and  at  last 
launching  on'a  wave,  and  with  it  sailing  down  the  moon- 
shiny  brook.  O,  without,  under  the  stars,  under  the  tones 
of  the  nightingale,  which  seem  to  reverberate,  not  from 
the  echo,  but  from  the  far-off  down-glancing  worlds  ;  be- 


222  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

side  that  moon,  which  the  gushing  brook,  in  its  flickering, 
watery  band,  is  carrying  away,  and  which  creeps  under 
the  little  shadows  of  the  bank  as  under  clouds,  —  0,  amid 
such  forms  and  tones,  the  heart  of  man  grows  serious; 
and  as  of  old  an  evening  bell  was  rung  to  direct  the  wan- 
derer through  the  deep  forests  to  his  nightly  home,  so  in 
our  Night  are  such  voices  within  us  afid  about  us,  which 
call  to  us  in  our  strayings,  and  make  us  calmer,  and  teach 
us  to  moderate  our  own  joys,  and  to  conceive  those  of 

others. 

*         *         * 

I  return,  peaceful  and  cool  enough,  to  my  narrative. 
AJl  yesternight  I  left  not  the  worthy  Parson  half  an  hour 
from  my  sight,  to  guard  him  from  poisoning  the  well  of 
his  life.  Full  of  paternal  joy,  and  with  the  skeleton  of 
the  sermon  (he  was  committing  it  to  memory)  in  his  hand, 
he  set  before  me  all  that  he  had ;  and  pointed  out  to  me 
the  fruit-baskets  of  pleasures  which  Cantata-Sunday  al- 
ways plucked  and  filled  for  him.  He  recounted  to  me,  as 
I  did  not  go  away,  his  baptisms,  his  accidents  of  office  ; 
told  me  of  his  relatives  ;  and  removed  my  uncertainty 
with  regard  to  the  public  revenues  —  of  his  parish,  to 
the  number  of  his  communicants  and  expected  catechu- 
mens. At  this  point,  however,  I  am  afraid  that  many  a 
reader  will  in  vain  endeavor  to  transport  himself  into  my 
situation,  and  still  be  unable  to  discover  why  I  said  to 
Fixlein,  "  Worthy  gossip,  better  no  man  could  wish  him- 
self."    I  lied  not,  for  so  it  is But  look  in  the  Note.* 

At  last  rose  the  Sunday,  the  present ;  and  on  this  holy 

*  A  long  philosophical  elucidation  is  indispensably  requisite;  which 
will  be  found  in  this  Book,  under  the  title,  Natural  Magic  of  the  Im- 
agination. [A  part  of  the  Jus  de  Tablette  appended  to  this  Biography, 
unconnected  with  it,  and  not  given  here.  —  Ed.] 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  223 

day,  simply  because  my  little  godson  was  for  going  over 
to  Christianity,  there  was  a  vast  racket  made  ;  every  time 
a  conversion  happens,  especially  of  nations,  there  is  an 
uproaring  and  a  shooting ;  I  refer  to  the  two  Thirty  Years' 
Wars,  to  the  more  recent  one,  and  to  the  earlier,  which 
Charlemagne  so  long  carried  on  with  the  heathen  Saxons  ; 
thus,  in  the  Palais  Royal,  the  Sun,  at  his  transit  over  the 
meridian,  fires  off  a  cannon.*  But  this  morning  the  little 
Unchristian,  my  godson,  was  precisely  the  person  least 
attended  to  ;  for,  in  thinking  of  the  conversion,  they  had 
no  time  left  to  think  of  the  convert.  Therefore  I  strolled 
about  with  him  myself  half  the  forenoon ;  and  in  our 
walk,  hastily  conferred  on  him  a  private  baptism  ;  having 
named  him  Jean  Paul  before  the  priest  did  so.  At  mid- 
day, we  sent  the  beef  away  as  it  had  come  ;  the  Sun  of 
happiness  having  desiccated  all  our  gastric  juices.  We 
now  began  to  look  about  us  for  pomp  ;  I  for  scientific  dec- 
orations of  my  hair,  my  godson  for  his  christening-shirt, 
and  his  mother  for  her  dress-cap.  Yet  before  the  child's- 
rattle  of  the  christening-bell  had  been  jingled,  I  and  the 
midwife,  in  front  of  the  mother's  bed,  instituted  Physi- 
ognomical Travels  on  the  countenance  of  the  small  Un- 
christian, and  returned  with  the  discovery,  that  some 
features  had  been  embossed  by  the  pattern  of  the  mother, 
and  many  firm  portions  resembled  me ;  a  double  similar- 
ity, in  which  my  readers  can  take  little  interest.  Jean 
Paul  looks  very  sensible  for  his  years,  or  rather  for  his 

minutes,  for  it  is  the  small  one  I  am  speaking  of 

But  now  I  would  ask,  what  German  writer  durst  take 

*  This  pygmy  piece  of  ordnance,  with  its  cunningly  devised  burn- 
ing-glass, is  still  to  be  seen  on  the  south  side  of  the  Paris  Vanity-Fair; 
and  in  fine  weather,  to  be  heard,  on  all  sides  thereof,  proclaiming  the 
conversion  (so  it  seems  to  Richter)  of  the  Day  from  Forenoon  to  After- 
noon. —  Ed, 


224  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

it  upon  him  to  spread  out  and  paint  a  large  historic  sheet, 
representing  the  whole  of  us  as  we  went  to  church  ? 
Would  he  not  require  to  draw  the  father,  with  swelHng 
canonicals,  moving  forward  slowly,  devoutly,  and  full  of 
emotion  ?  Would  he  not  have  to  sketch  the  godfather, 
minded  this  day  to  lend  out  his  names,  which  he  derived 
from  two  Apostles  (John  and  Paul),  as  Julius  Caesar 
lent  out  his  names  to  two  things  still  living  even  now  (to 
a  month  and  a  throne)  ?  —  And  must  he  not  put  the  god- 
son on  his  sheet,  with  whom  even  the  Emperor  Joseph 
(in  his  need  of  nurse-milk)  might  become  a  foster- 
brother,  in  his  old  days,  if  he  were  still  in  them  ?  — 

In  my  chamber,  I  have  a  hundred  times  determined  to 
smile  at  solemnities,  in  the  midst  of  which  I  afterwards, 
while  assisting  at  them,  involuntarily  wore  a  petrified 
countenance,  full  of  dignity  and  seriousness.  For,  as  the 
Schoolmaster,  just  before  the  baptism,  began  to  sound  the 
organ  —  an  honor  never  paid  to  any  other  child  in  Huke- 
lum,  —  and  when  I  saw  the  wooden  christening-angel, 
like  an  alighted  Genius,  with  his  painted  timber  arm 
spread  out  under  the  baptismal  ewer,  and  I  myself  came 
to  stand  close  by  him,  under  his  gilt  wing,  I  protest  the 
blood  went  slow  and  solemn,  w^arm  and  close,  through  my 
pulsing  head,  and  my  lungs  full  of  sighs;  and  to  the 
silent  darling  lying  in  my  arms,  whose  unripe  eyes  Nature 
yet  held  closed  from  the  full  perspective  of  the  Earth,  I 
wished,  with  more  sadness  than  I  do  to  myself,  for  his 
Future  also  as  soft  a  sleep  as  to-day ;  and  as  good  an 
angel  as  to-day,  but  a  more  living  one,  to  guide  him  into 
a  more  living  religion,  and,  with  invisible  hand,  conduct 
him  unlost  through  the  forest  of  Life,  through  its  falling 
trees,  and  Wild  Hunters,*  and  all  its  storms  and  perils. 

*  The  Wild  Hunter,    Wilde  Jager,  is  a  popular  spectre  of  Ger- 
many. —  Ed, 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  225 

.  ;  .  .  "Will  the  world  not  excuse  me,  if  when,  by  a  side- 
glance,  I  saw  on  the  paternal  countenance  prayers  for  the 
son,  and  tears  of  joy  trickling  down  into  the  prayer  ;  and 
when  I  noticed  on  the  countenance  of  the  grandmother 
far  darker  and  fast-hidden  drops,  which  she  could  not 
restrain,  while  I,  in  answer  to  the  ancient  question,  en- 
gaged to  provide  for  the  child  if  its  parents  died,  —  am  I 
not  to  be  excused  if  I  then  cast  my  eyes  deep  down  on 
my  little  godson,  merely  to  hide  their  running  over  ?  — 
For  I  remembered  that  his  father  might  perhaps  this  very 
day  grow  pale  and  cold  before  a  suddenly  arising  mask 
of  Death  ;  I  thought  how  the  poor  little  one  had  only 
changed  his  bent  posture  in  the  womb  with  a  freer  one, 
to  bend  and  cramp  himself  erelong  more  harshly  in  the 
strait  arena  of  life  ;  I  thought  of  his  inevitable  follies,  and 
errors,  and  sins ;  of  these  soiled  steps  to  the  Grecian 
Temple  of  our  Perfection  ;  I  thought  that  one  day  his 
own  fire  of  genius  might  reduce  himself  to  ashes,  as  a 
man  that  is  electrified  can  kill  himself  with  his  own  light- 
ning  All  the  theological  Avishes,   which,    on   the 

godson-billet  printed  over  with  them,   I  placed   in    his 

young  bosom,  were  glowing  written  in  mine But 

the  white  feathered-pink  of  my  joy  had  then,  as  it  always 
has,  a  bloody  point  within  it,  —  I  again,  as  it  always  is, 

went  to  nest,  like  a  woodpecker,  in  a  skull And  as 

I  am  doing  so  even  now,  let  the  describing  of  the  baptism 
be  over  for  to-day,  and  proceed  again  to-morrow 


10* 


FOURTEENTH    LETTER-BOX, 


joys 


H.  so  it  is  ever  !     So  does  Fate  set  fxre  to  the 
theatre    of  our  little  plavs.  and  our    bright- 
painted  curtain    of    Futurity  I     So  does    the 
Serpent  of  Eternity  wind  round  ns  and  our 
and  crush,  like  the  royal-snake,  what  it  does  not 


poison  I  Thou  good  Fixlein  I  —  Ah  !  last  night,  I  little 
thought  that  thou,  mild  soul,  while  I  was  writing  beside 
thee,  wert  already  journeying  into  the  poisonous  Earth- 
shadow  of  Death. 

Last  night,  late  as  it  was.  he  opened  the  lead  box  found 
in  the  old  steeple-ball :  a  catalogue  of  those  who  had  sub- 
scribed to  the  last  repairing  of  the  church  was  there  ;  and 
he  began  to  read  it  now  :  my  presence  and  his  occupa- 
tions having  prevented  him  before.  O,  how  shall  I  tell 
that  the  record  of  his  birth-veai',  which  I  had  hidden  in 
the  new  Ball,  was  waiting  for  him  in  the  old  one  ;  that 
in  the  register  of  contributions  he  found  his  father's 
name,  with  the  appendage.  **  given  for  his  new-born  son 
Egidias  ?  ^  — 

This  stroke  sunk  deep  into  his  bosom,  even  to  the  rend- 
ing of  it  asunder  ;  in  this  warm  hour,  full  of  paternal  joy, 
after  such  fair  days,  after  such  fair  employments,  after 
dread  of  death  so  often  survived,  here,  in  the  bright, 
smooth  sea,  which    is    rocking    and    bearing  him   along, 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  22/ 

starts  snorting,  from  the  bottomless  abyss,  the  sea-mon- 
ster Death  ;  and  the  monster's  throat  yawns  wide,  and  the 
silent  sea  rushes  into  it  in  whirlpools,  and  hurries  him 
along  with  it. 

But  the  patient  man,  quietly  and  slowly,  and  with  a 
heart  silent,  though  deadly  cold,  laid  the  leaves  together ; 
looked  softly  and  firmly  over  the  churchyard,  where,  in 
the  moonshine,  the  grave  of  his  father  was  to  be  distin- 
guished ;  gazed  timidly  up  to  the  sky,  full  of  stars,  which 
a  white  overarching  laurel-tree  screened  from  his  sight ;  — 
and  though  he  longed  to  be  in  bed,  to  settle  there  and 
sleep  it  off,  yet  he  paused  at  the  window  to  pray  for  his 
wife  and  child,  in  case  this  night  were  his  last. 

At  this  moment  the  steeple-clock  struck  twelve ;  but, 
from  the  breaking  of  a  pin,  the  weights  kept  rolhng  down, 
and  the  clock-hammer  struck  without  stopping,  —  and  he 
heard  with  horror  the  chains  and  wheels  rattling  along ; 
and  he  felt  as  if  Death  were  hurling  forth  in  a  heap  all 
the  longer  hours  which  he  might  yet  have  had  to  live,  — 
and  now,  to  his  eyes,  the  churchyard  began  to  quiver  and 
heave,  the  moonlight  flickered  on  the  church-windows, 
and  in  the  church  there  were  lights  flitting  to  and  fro,  and 
in  the  charnel-house  was  a  motion  and  a  tumult. 

His  heart  fainted  within  him,  and  he  threw  himself  into 
bed,  and  closed  his  eyes  that  he  might  not  see ;  —  but 
Imagination  in  the  gloom  now  blew  aloft  the  dust  of  the 
dead,  and  whirled  it  into  giant  shapes,  and  chased  these 
hollow,  fever-born  masks  alternately  into  lightning  and 
shadow.  Then  at  last  from  transparent  thoughts  grew 
colored  visions,  and  he  dreamed  this  dream.  He  was 
standing  at  the  window  looking  out  into  the  churchyard  ; 
and  Death,  in  size  as  a  scorpion,  was  creeping  over  it, 
and  seeking  for  his  bones.     Death  found  some  arm-bones 


228  LIFE    OF    QUIXTUS    FIXLEIN 

and  thigh-bones  on  the  graye?,  and  said,  "  They  are  my 
bones  " ;  and  he  took  a  spine  and  the  bone-legs,  and  stood 
■with  them,  and  the  two  arm-bones  and  ckitched  with  them, 
and  found  on  the  grave  of  Fixlein's  father  a  skull,  and  put 
it  on.  Then  he  lifted  a  scythe  beside  the  little  flower- 
garden,  and  cried  :  "  Fixlein,  where  art  thou  ?  My  finger 
is  an  icicle  and  no  finger,  and  I  will  tap  on  thy  heart  with 
it."  The  Skeleton,  thus  piled  together,  now  looked  for 
him  who  was  standing  at  the  window,  and  powerless  to 
stir  from  it ;  and  carried  in  the  one  hand,  instead  of  a 
sand-glass,  the  ever-striking  steeple-clock,  and  held  out  the 
finger  of  ice,  like  a  dagger,  far  into  the  air 

Then  he  saw  his  victim  above  at  the  window,  and 
raised  himself  as  high  as  the  laurel-tree  to  stab  straight 
into  his  bosom  with  the  finger,  —  and  stalked  towards 
him.  But  as  he  came  nearer,  his  pale  bones  grew  red- 
der, and  vapors  floated  woolly  round  his  haggard  form. 
Flowers  started  up  from  the  ground  ;  and  he  stood  trans- 
figured and  without  the  clamm  of  the  grave,  hovering 
above  them,  and  the  balm-breath  from  the  flower-cups 
wafted  him  gently  on ;  —  and  as  he  came  nearer,  the 
scythe  and  clock  were  gone,  and  in  his  bony  breast  he 
had  a  heart,  and  on  his  bony  head  red  lips  ;  —  and  nearer 
still,  there  gathered  on  him  soft,  transparent,  rosebaim- 
dipped  flesh,  like  the  splendor  of  an  Angel  flying  hither 
from  the  starry  blue  ;  —  and  close  at  hand,  he  was  an 
Angel  with  shut  snow-wliite  eyelids 

The  heart  of  my  friend,  quivering  like  a  Harmonica- 
bell,  now  melted  in  bliss  in  his  clear  bosom  ;  —  and  when 
the  Angel  opened  its  eyes,  his  Mere  pressed  together  by 
the  weight  of  celestial  rapture,  and  his  dream  fled 
away. 

But  not  his  life:  he  opened  his   hot   eyes,  and  —  his 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  229 

good  wife  had  hold  of  his  feverish  hand,  and^was  standing 
in  room  of  the  Angel. 

The  fever  abated  towards  morning ;  but  the  certainty 
of  dying  still  throbbed  in  every  artery  of  the  hapless 
man.  He  called  for  his  fair  little  infant  into  his  sick-bed, 
and  pressed  it  silently,  though  it  began  to  cry,  too  hard 
against  his  paternal,  heavy-laden  breast.  Then  towards 
noon  his  soul  became  cool,  and  the  sultry  thunder-clouds 
within  it  drew  back.  And  here  he  described  to  us  the 
previous  (as  it  were,  arsenical)  fantasies  of  his  usually 
quiet  head.  But  it  is  even  those  tense  nerves,  which 
have  not  quivered  at  the  touch  of  a  poetic  hand  striking 
them  to  melody  of  sorrow,  that  start  and  fly  asunder 
more  easily  under  the  fierce  hand  of  Fate,  when  with 
sweeping  stroke  it  smites  into  discord  the  firm-set  strings. 

But  towards  night  his  ideas  again  began  rushing  in  a 
torch-dance,  like  fire-pillars  round  his  soul ;  every  artery 
became  a  burning-rod,  and  the  heart  drove  flaming 
naphtha-brooks  into  the  brain.  All  within  his  soul  grew 
bloody;  the  blood  of  his  drowned  brother  united  itself 
with  the  blood  which  had  once  flowed  from  Thiennette's 
arm,  into  a  bloody  rain  ;  —  he  still  thought  he  was  in  the 
garden  in  the  night  of  betrothment,  he  still  kept  calling 
for  bandages  to  stanch  blood,  and  was  for  hiding  his 
head  in  the  ball  of  the  steeple.  .Nothing  afilicts  one  more 
than  to  see  a  reasonable,  moderate  man,  who  has  been  so 
even  in  his  passions,  raving  in  the  poetic  madness  of 
fever.  And  yet  if  nothing  save  this  mouldering  corrup- 
tion can  soothe  the  hot  brain ;  and  if,  while  the  reek  and 
thick  vapor  of  a  boiling  nervous-spirit  and  the  hissing 
water-spouts  of  the  veins  are  encircling  and  eclipsing  the 
stifled  soul,  a  higher  Finger  presses  through  the  cloud, 
and  suddenly  lifts  the  poor  bewildered  spirit  from  amid 


230  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

the  smoke  to^a  sun,  —  is  it  more  just  to  complain,  than  to 
reflect  that  Fate  is  like  the  oculist,  who,  when  about  to 
open  to  a  blind  eye  the  world  of  light,  first  bandages  and 
darkens  the  other  eye  that  sees  ? 

But  the  sorrow  does  affect  me,  which  I  read  on  Thien- 
nette's  pale  lips,  though  do  not  hear.  It  is  not  the  distor- 
tion of  an  excruciating  agony,  nor  the  burning  of  a  dried- 
up  eye,  nor  the  loud  lamenting  or  violent  movement  of  a 
tortured  frame,  that  I  see  in  her  ;  but  what  I  am  forced  to 
see  in  her,  and  what  too  keenly  cuts  the  sympathizing 
heart,  is  a  pale,  still,  unmoved,  undistorted  face,  a  pale, 
bloodless  head,  which  Sorrow  is  as  it  were  holding  up 
after  the  stroke,  like  a  head  just  severed  by  the  axe  of 
the  headsman ;  for  oh !  on  this  form  the  wounds,  from 
which  the  three-edged  dagger  had  been  drawn,  are  all 
fallen  firmly  together,  and  the  blood  is  flowing  from  them 
in  secret  into  the  choking  heart.  O  Thiennette,  go  away 
from  the  sick-bed,  and  hide  that  face  which  is  saying  to 
us :  "  Now  do  I  know  that  I  shall  not  have  any  happiness 
on  Earth  ;  now  do  I  give  over  hoping,  —  would  this  life 
were  but  soon  done!" 

You  will  not  comprehend  my  sympathy,  if  you  know 
not  what,  some  hours  ago,  the  too  loud  lamenting  mother 
told  me.  Thiennette,  who  of  old  had  always  trembled  for 
his  thirty-second  year,  had  encountered  this  superstition 
with  a  nobler  one ;  she  had  purposely  stood  farther  back 
at  the  marriage-altar,  and  in  the  bridal-night  fallen  sooner 
asleep  than  he;  thereby  —  as  is  the  popular  belief — so 
to  order  it  that  she  might  also  die  sooner.  Nay,  she  has 
determined,  if  he  die,  to  lay  with  his  corpse  a  piece  of 
her  apparel,  that  so  she  may  descend  the  sooner  to  keep 
him  company  in  his  narrow  house.  Thou  good,  thou 
faithful  wife,  but  thou  unhappy  one  !  — 


CHAPTER    LAST 


HAVE  left  Hukelum,  and  my  gossip  his  bed  ; 
and  the  one  is  as  sound  as  the  other.  The 
cure  was  as  foolish  as  the  maladj.  It  first 
occurred  to  me,  that,  as  Boerhaave  used  to 
remedy  convulsions  by  convulsions,  one  fancy  might  in  my 
gossip's  case  be  remedied  by  another ;  namely,  by  the  fancy 
that  he  was  yet  no  man  of  thirty-two,  but  only  a  man  of  six. 
or  nine.  Deliriums  are  dreams  not  encircled  by  sleep ; 
and  all  dreams  transport  us  back  into  youth,  why  not  de- 
liriums too  ?  I  accordingly  directed  every  one  to  leave 
the  patient ;  only  his  mother,  while  the  fiercest  meteors 
were  darting,  hissing  before  his  fevered  soul,  was  to  sit 
down  by  him  alone,  and  speak  to  him  as  if  he  were  a 
child  of  eight  years.  The  bed-mirror  also  I  directed 
her  to  cover.  She  did  so ;  she  spoke  to  him  as  if  he  had 
the  small-pox  fever ;  and  when  he  cried,  "  Death  is 
standing  with  two-and-thirty  pointed  teeth  before  me,  to 
eat  my  heart,"  she  said  to  him,  "  Little  dear,  I  will  give 
thee  thy  roller-hat,  and  thy  copy-book,  and  thy  case,  and 
thy  hussar-cloak  again,  and  more  too  if  thou  wilt  be 
good."  A  reasonable  speech  he  would  have  taken  up 
and  heeded  much  less  than  he  did  this  foolish  one. 

At  last  she  said,  —  for  to  women  in  the  depth  of  sorrow 
dissimulation  becomes  easy,  —  "  Well,  I  will  try  it  this  once, 


232  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

and  give  thee  thy  playthings ;  but  do  the  like  again,  thou 
rogue,  and  roll  thyself  about  in  the  bed  so,  with  the  small- 
pox on  thee ! "  And  with  this,  from  her  full  apron  she 
shook  out  on  the  bed  the  whole  stock  of  playthings  and 
dressing-ware,  which  I  had  found  in  the  press  of  the 
drowned  brother.  First  of  all  his  copy-book,  where 
Egidius  in  his  eighth  year  had  put  down  his  name,  which 
he  necessarily  recognized  as  his  own  handwriting ;  then 
the  black  velvet  fall-hat  or  roller-cap ;  then  the  red  and 
white  leading-strings ;  his  knife-case,  with  a  little  pam- 
phlet of  tin  leaves ;  his  green  hussar-cloak,  with  its  stiff 
facings ;  and  a  whole  orhis  pictus  or  Jictus  of  Ntirnberg 
puppets 

The  sick  man  recognized  in  a  moment  these  projecting 
peaks  of  a  spring-world  sunk  in  the  stream  of  Time,  — 
these  half  shadows,  this  dusk  of  down-gone  days,  —  this 
conflagration-place  and  Golgotha  of  a  heavenly  time, 
which   none  of  us  forgets,  which  we  love  forever,  and 

look  back  to  even  from  the  grave And  when  he 

saw  all  this,  he  slowly  turned  round  his  head,  as  if 
he  were  awakening  from  a  long,  heavy  dream  ;  and  his 
whole  heart  flowed  down  in  warm  showers  of  tears,  and 
he  said,  fixing  his  full  eyes  on  the  eyes  of  his  mother : 
"But  are  my  father  and  brother  still  living  then?"  — 
"  They  are  dead  lately,"  said  the  wounded  mother ;  but 
her  heart  was  overpowered,  and  she  turned  away  her 
eyes,  and  bitter  tears  fell  unseen  from  her  down-bent 
head.  And  now  at  once  that  evening,  when  he  lay  con- 
fined to  bed  by  the  death  of  his  father,  and  was  cured  by 
his  playthings,  overflowed  his  soul  with  splendor  and 
lights,  and  presence  of  the  Past. 

And  so  Delirium  dyed  for  itself  rosy  wings  in  the  Au- 
rora of  life,  and  fanned  the  panting  soul,  —  and  shook 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  233 

down  golden  butterfly-dust  from  its  plumage  on  the  path, 
on  the  flowerage  of  the  suflTering  man ;  —  in  the  far  dis- 
tance rose  lovely  tones,  in  the  distance  floated  lovely 
clouds  —  O  his  heart  was  hke  to  fall  in  pieces,  but  only 
into  fluttering  flower-stamina,  into  soft  sentient  nerves  ; 
his  eyes  were  like  to  melt  away,  but  only  into  dew-drops 
for  the  cups  of  joy -blossoms,  into  blood-drops  for  loving 
hearts;  his  soul  was  floating,  palpitating,  drinking,  and 
swimming  in  the  warm,  relaxing  rose-perfume  of  the 
brightest  delusion 

The  rapture  bridled  his  feverish  heart ;  and  his  mad 
pulse  grew  calm.  Next  morning  his  mother,  when  she 
saw  that  all  was  prospering,  would  have  had  the  church- 
bells  rung,  to  make  him  think  that  the  second  Sunday  was 
already  here.  But  his  wife  (perhaps  out  of  shame  in  my 
presence)  was  averse  to  the  lying ;  and  said  it  would  be 
all  the  same  if  we  moved  the  month-hand  of  his  clock 
(but  otherwise  than  Hezekiah's  Dial)  eight  days  forward ; 
especially  as  he  was  wont  rather  to  rise  and  look  at  his 
clock  for  the  day  of  the  month,  then  to  turn  it  up  in  the 
almanac.  I  for  my  own  part  simply  went  up  to  the  bed- 
side, and  asked  him  :  "  If  he  was  cracked  —  what  in  the 
world  he  meant  with  his  mad  death-dreams,  when  he  had 
lain  so  long,  and  passed  clean  over  the  Cantata-Sunday, 
and  yet,  out  of  sheer  terror,  was  withering  to  a  lath  ?  " 

A  glorious  reinforcement  joined  me  ;  the  Flesher  or 
Quartermaster.  In  his  anxiety,  he  rushed  into  the  room, 
without  saluting  the  women,  and  I  forthwith  addressed 
him  aloud  :  "  My  gossip  here  is  giving  me  trouble  enough, 
Mr.  Regiments-Quartermaster  ;  last  night,  he  let  them 
persuade  him  he  was  little  older  than  his  own  son  ;  here 
is  the  child's  fall-hat  he  was  for  putting  on.''  The  Guar- 
dian deuced  and  devilled,  and  said :  "  Ward,  are  you  a 


234  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

parson  or  a  fool  ?  —  Have  not  I  told  you  twenty  times, 
there  was  a  maggot  in  your  head  about  this  ?  "  — 

At  last  he  himself  perceived  that  he  was  not  rightly 
wise,  and  so  grew  better ;  besides  the  guardian's  invec- 
tives, my  oaths  contributed  a  good  deal;  for  I  swore  I 
would  hold  him  as  no  right  gossip,  and  edit  no  word  of  his 
Biography,  unless  he  rose  directly  and  got  better 

—  In  short,  he  showed  so  much  politeness  to  me  that 
he  rose  and  got  better.  —  He  was  still  sickly,  it  is  true, 
on  Saturday  ;  and  on  Sunday  could  not  preach  a  sermon 
(something  of  the  sort  the  Schoolmaster  read,  instead)  ; 
but  yet  he  took  Confessions  on  Saturday,  and  at  the  altar 
next  day  he  dispensed  the  Sacrament.  Service  ended, 
the  feast  of  his  recovery  was  celebrated,  my  farewell- 
feast  included  ;  for  I  was  to  go  in  the  afternoon. 

This  last  afternoon  I  will  chalk  out  with  all  possible 
breadth,  and  then,  with  the  pentagraph  of  free  garrulity, 
fill  up  the  outline  and  draw  on  the  great  scale. 

During  the  Thanksgiving-repast,  there  arrived  consid- 
erable personal  tribute  from  his  catechumens,  and  fairings 
by  way  of  bonfire  for  his  recovery  ;  proving  how  much 
the  people  loved  him,  and  how  well  he  deserved  it ;  for 
one  is  oftener  hated  without  reason  by  the  many,  than 
without  reason  loved  by  them.  But  Fixlein  was  friendly 
to  every  child ;  was  none  of  those  clergy  who  never 
pardon  their  enemies  except  in  —  God's  stead  ;  and 
he  praised  at  once  the  whole  world,  his  wife,  and 
himself 

I  then  attended  at  his  afternoon's  catechizing ;  and 
looked  down  (as  he  did  in  the  first  Letter-Box)  from  the 
choir,  under  the  wing  of  the  wooden  cherub.  Behind 
this  angel,  I  drew  out  my  note-book,  and  shifted  a  little 
under  the  cover  of  the  Black  Board,  with  its  white  Psalm- 


1 


i 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  235 

ciphers,*  and  wrote  down  what  I  was  there  —  thinking. 
I  was  well  aware,  that  when  I  to-daj,  on  the  twenty- 
fifth  of  May  retired  from  this  Salernic  f  spinning-school, 
where  one  is  taught  to  spin  out  the  thread  of  life,  in 
fairer  wise,  and  without  wetting  it  by  foreign  mixtures,  — 
I  was  well  aware,  I  say,  that  I  should  carry  off  with  me  far 
more  elementary  principles  of  the  Science  of  Happiness 
than  the  whole  Chamberlain  piquet  ever  muster  all  their 
days.  I  noted  down  my  first  impression,  in  the  following 
Rules  of  Life  for  myself  and  the  press. 

"  Little  joys  refresh  us  constantly  like  house-bread,  and 
never  bring  disgust ;  and  great  ones,  like  sugar-bread, 
briefly,  and  then  bring  it.  —  Trifles  we  should  let,  not 
plague  us  only,  but  also  gratify  us  ;  we  should  seize  not 
their  poison-bags  only,  but  their  honey-bags  also ;  and  if 
flies  often  buzz  about  our  room,  we  should,  like  Domitian, 
amuse  ourselves  with  flies,  or,  like  a  certain  still  living 
Elector,!  feed  them.  —  For  civic  life  and  its  micrologics, 
for  which  the  Parson  has  a  natural  taste,  we  must  acquire 
an  artificial  one  ;  must  learn  to  love  without  esteeming  it ; 
learn,  far  as  it  ranks  beneath  human  life,  to  enjoy  it  like 
another  twig  of  this  human  life,  as  poetically  as  we  do  the 
pictures  of  it  in  romances.  The  loftiest  mortal  loves  and 
seeks  the  same  sort  of  things  with  the  meanest ;  only  from 
higher  grounds  and  by  higher  paths.  Be  every  minute, 
Man,  a  full  life  to  thee  !  —  Despise  anxiety  and  wishing, 
the  Future  and  the  Past !  —  If  the  Second-pointer  can  be  no 
road-pointer  into  an  Eden  for  thy  soul,  the  Month-pointer 

*  Indicating  to  the  congregation  what  Psalm  is  to  be  sung.  — Ed. 

t  Salerno  was  once  famous  for  its  medical  science;  but  here,  as  in 
many  other  cases,  we  could  desire  the  aid  of  Herr  Reinhold  with  his 
Lexicon-  Commentary.  —  Ed. 

X  This  hospitable  Potentate  is  as  unknown  to  me  as  to  any  of  my 
readers.  —  Ed. 


236  LIFE    OF    QUIXTUS    FIXLKIN. 

will  still  less  be  so,  for  thou  livest  not  from  month  to 
month,  but  from  second  to  second  !  Enjoy  thy  Existence 
more  than  thy  Manner  of  Existence,  and  let  the  dearest 
object  of  thy  Consciousness  be  this  Consciousness  itself! 
—  Make  not  the  Present  a  means  of  thy  Future  ;  for  this 
Future  is  nothing  but  a  coming  Present ;  and  the  Present, 
•which  tliou  despisest,  -was  once  a  Future  which  thou  de- 
siredst!  —  Stake  in  no  lotteries,  —  keep  at  home,  —  give 
and  accept  no  pompous  entertainments,  —  travel  not  abroad 
every  year  !  —  Conceal  not  from  thyself,  by  long  plans, 
thy  household  goods,  thy  chamber,  thy  acquaintance !  — 
Despise  Life,  that  thou  mayst  enjoy  it !  —  Inspect  the 
neighborhood  of  thy  life  ;  every  shelf,  every  nook  of  thy 
abode  ;  and  nestling  in,  quarter  thyself  in  the  farthest  and 
most  domestic  winding  of  thy  snail-house !  —  Look  upon 
a  capital  but  as  a  collection  of  villages,  a  village  as  some 
blind-alley  of  a  capital ;  fame  as  the  talk  of  neighbors 
at  the  street-door  ;  a  library  as  a  learned  conversation, 
joy  as  a  second,  sorrow  as  a  minute,  life  as  a  day ;  and 
three  things  as  all  in  all :   God,  Creation,  Virtue  !  " 

And  if  I  would  follow  myselt'  and  these  rules,  it  will 
behoove  me  not  to  make  so  much  of  this  Biography ;  but 
once  for  all,  like  a  moderate  man,  to  let  it  sound  out. 

After  the  Catechizing,  I  stept  down  to  my  wide-gowned 
and  black-gowned  gossip.  The  congregation  gone,  we 
clambered  up  to  all  high  places,  perused  the  plates  on  the 
pews  —  I  took  a  lesson  on  the  altar  on  its  inscription  in- 
crusted  with  the  sediment  of  Time  (I  speak  not  metaphor- 
ically) ;  I  organed,  my  gossip  managing  the  bellows  ;  I 
mounted  the  pulpit,  and  was  happy  enough  there  to  alight 
on  one  other  rose-shoot,  which  in  the  farewell  minute.  I 
could  still  plant  in  the  rose-garden  of  my  Fixlein.  For  I 
descried  aloft,  on  the  back  of  a  wooden  Apostle,  the  name 


LIFE  OF   QUINTUS  FIXLEIN.  237 

Lavater,  which  the  Zurich  Physiognomist  had  been  pleased 
to  leave  on  this  sacred  Torso  in  the  course  of  his  wayfar- 
ing. Fixlein  did  not  know  the  hand,  but  I  did,  for  I  had 
seen  it  frequently  in  Flachsenfingen,  not  only  on  the  tap- 
estry of  a  Court  Lady  there,  but  also  in  his  Hand-Libra- 
ry ;  *  and  met  with  it  besides  in  many  country  churches, 
forming,  as  it  were,  the  Directory  and  Address- Calendar 
of  this  wandering  name,  for  Lavater  likes  to  inscribe  in 
pulpits,  as  a  shepherd  does  in  trees,  the  name  of  his  be- 
loved. I  could  now  advise  my  gossip  prudently  to  cut 
away  the  name,  with  the  chip  of  wood  containing  it,  from 
the  back  of  the  Apostle,  and  to  preserve  it  carefully 
among  his  ciiriosa. 

On  returning  to  the  parsonage,  I  made  for  my  hat  and 
stick ;  but  the  design,  as  it  were  the  projection  and  con- 
tour of  a  supper  in  the  acacia-grove,  had  already  been 
sketched  by  Thiennette.  I  declared  that  I  would  stay  till 
evening,  in  case  the  young  mother  went  out  with  us  to 
the  proposed  meal  ....  and  truly  the  Biographer  at 
length  got  his  way,  all  doctors'  regulations  notwith- 
standing. 

I  then  constrained  the  Parson  to  put  on  his  Krauter- 
miitze,t  or  Herb-cap,  which  he  had  stitched  together  out 
of  simples  for  the  strengthening  of  his  memory :  "  Would 
to  Heaven,"  said  I,  "  that  Princes  instead  of  their  Princely 
Hats,  Doctors  and  Cardinals  instead  of  theirs,  and  Saints 

*  A  little  work  printed  in  manuscript  types ;  and  seldom  given  by 
him  to  any  but  Princes.  This  piece  of  print-writing  he  intentionally 
passes  off  to  the  gi-eat  as  a  piece  of  hand- writing;  these  persons  being 
both  more  habituated  and  inclined  to  the  reading  of  manuscript  than 
of  print. 

t  Thus  defined  by  Adelung  in  his  Lexicon:  '■^ Kraiitermutze,  in 
Medicine,  a  cap  with  various  dried  herbs  sewed  into  it,  and  which  i3 
woru  for  all  manner  of  troubles  in  the  head."  —  Ed. 


238  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

instead  of  martyr-crowns,  would  clap  such  memory -bon- 
nets on  their  heads!  "  —  Thereupon,  till  the  roasting  and 
cooking  within  doors  were  oyer,  we  marched  out  alone  oyer 
the  parsonage  meadows,  and  talked  of  learned  matters,  we 
packed  oursehes  into  the  ruined  Robber-Castle,  on  which 
my  gossip,  as  already  mentioned,  has  a  literary  work  in 
hand.  I  deeply  approyed,  the  rather  as  this  Kidnapper- 
tower  had  once  belonged  to  an  Aufhammer,  his  intention 
of  dedicating  the  description  to  the  Rittmeister ;  that 
nobleman,  I  think,  will  sooner  giye  his  name  to  the  Book 
than  to  the  Shock.  For  the  rest,  I  exhorted  my  fellow- 
craftsman  to  pluck  up  literaiy  heart,  and  said  to  him: 
'*  A  fearless  pen,  good  gossip  !  Let  Subrector  Hans  yon 
Fiichsleiu  be,  if  he  like,  the  Dragon  of  the  Apocalypse, 
lying  in  wait  for  the  deliyery  of  the  fugitiye  AVoman,  to 
swallow  the  oUspring;  I  am  there  too,  and  haye  my 
friend  the  Editor  of  the  Litteraturzcitung  at  my  side, 
who  will  gladly  permit  me  to  giye  an  anticritique  on  pay- 
ing the  insertion-dues!"  —  I  especially  excited  him  to 
new  hllings  and  return-freights  of  his  Letter-Boxes.  I 
haye  not  taken  oath  that  into  this  biographical  chest- 
of-drawers  I  will  not  in  the  course  of  time  introduce 
another  Box.  '•  Xelrher  to  my  godson,  worthy  gossip, 
will  it  do  any  harm  that  he  is  presented,  poor  child,  eyen 
now  to  the  reading  public,  when  he  does  not  count  more 
months  than,  as  Horace  will  haye  it,  a  literaiy  child 
should  count  years,  namely,  ?u')ie." 

In  walking  homewards.  I  praised  his  wife.  '•  If  mar- 
riage," said  I  to  him,  '*  is  the  madder  which  in  maids,  as 
in  cotton,  makes  the  colors  yisible.  then  I  contend,  that 
Thiennette,  when  a  maid,  could  scarcely  be  so  good  as 
she  is  now  when  a  wife.  By  Heayen !  in  such  a  mar- 
riage, I  should  write  Books  of  quite  another  sort,  diyiue 


J 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  239 

ones ;  in  a  marriage,  I  mean,  where  beside  the  writing- 
table  (as  beside  the  great  voting-table  at  the  Regensburg 
Diets,  there  are  little  tables  of  confectionery)  ;  where  in 
like  manner,  I  say,  a  little  jar  of  marmalade  were  stand- 
ing by  me,  namely,  a  sweetened,  dainty,  lovely  face,  and 
out  of  measure  fond  of  the  Letter-Box-writer,  gossip  ! 
Your  marriage  will  resemble  the  acacia-grove  we  are 
now  going  to,  the  leaves  of  which  grow  thicker  with  the 
heat  of  summer,  while  other  shrubs  are  yielding  only 
shrunk  and  porous  shade." 

As  we  entered  through  the  upper  garden-door  into  this 
same  bower,  the  supper  and  the  good  mistress  were 
already  there.  Nothing  is  more  pure  and  tender  than 
the  respect  with  which  a  wife  treats  the  benefactor  or 
comrade  of  her  husband  ;  and  happily  the  Biographer 
himself  was  this  comrade,  and  the  object  of  this  respect. 
Our  talk  was  cheerful,  but  my  spirit  was  oppressed.  The 
fetters,  which  bind  the  mere  reader  to  my  heroes,  were  in 
my  case  of  triple  force ;  as  I  was  at  once  their  guest  and 
their  portrait-painter.  I  told  the  Parson  that  he  would 
live  to  a  greater  age  than  I,  for  that  his  temperate  tem- 
perament was  balanced,  as  if  by  a  doctor,  so  equally 
between  the  nervousness  of  refinement  and  the  hot  thick- 
bloodedness  of  the  rustic.  Fixlein  said  that  if  he  lived 
but  as  long  as  he  had  done,  namely,  two-and-thirty  years, 
it  w^ould  amount,  exclusive  of  the  leap-year-days,  to 
280,320  seconds,  which  in  itself  was  something  consid- 
erable; and  that  he  often  reckoned  up  with  satisfaction 
the"  many  thousand  persons  of  his  own  age  that  would 
have  a  life  equally  long. 

At  last  I  tried  to  get  in  motion  ;  for  the  red  lights  of 
the  falhng  sun  were  mounting  up  over  the  grove,  and 
dipping  us  still  deeper  in   the   shadows  of  night ;   the 


24-0  LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN. 

young  mother  had  grown  chill  in  the  evening  dew.  In 
confused  mood,  I  invited  the  Parson  to  visit  me  soon  in 
the  city,  where  I  would  show  him  not  only  all  the  cham- 
bers of  the  Palace,  but  the  Prince  himself.  Gladder 
there  was  nothing  this  day  on  our  old  world  than  the  face 
to  which  I  said  so ;  and  than  the  other  one  which  was  the 
mild  reflection  of  the  former.  —  For  the  Biographer  it 
would  have  been  too  hard,  if  now  in  that  minute,  when 
his  fancy,  like  mirror-telescopes,  was  representing  every 
object  in  a  ii-emulous  form,  he  had  been  obliged  to  cut  and 
run  ;  if,  I  will  say,  it  had  not  occurred  to  him  that  to  the 
young  mother  it  could  do  little  harm  (but  much  good)  were 
she  to  take  a  short  walk,  and  assist  in  escorting  the  Author 
and  architect  of  the  present  Letter-Box  out  of  the  garden 
to  his  road. 

In  short,  I  took  this  couple  one  in  each  hand,  instead 
of  under  each  arm,  and  moved  with  them  through  the 
garden  to  the  Flachsenlingen  highway.  I  often  abruptly 
turned  round  my  head  between  them,  as  if  I  had  heard 
some  one  coming  after  us ;  but  in  reality  I  only  meant 
once  more,  though  mournfully,  to  look  back  into  the 
happy  hamlet,  whose  houses  were  all  dwellings  of  con- 
tented still  Sabbath-joy,  and  which  is  happy  enough, 
though  over  its  wide-parted  pavement-stones  there  passes 
every  week  but  one  barber,  every  holiday  but  one  dresser 
of  hair,  and  every  year  but  one  hawker  of  parasols. 
Then  truly  I  had  again  to  turn  round  my  head,  and  look 
at  the  happy  pair  beside  me.  My  otherwise  aflfectionate 
gossip  could  not  rightly  suit  himself  to  these  tokens  of 
sorrow ;  but  in  thy  heart,  thou  good,  so  oft  afflicted  sex, 
every  mourning-bell  soon  finds  its  unison ;  and  Thien- 
nette,  ennobled  with  the  thin  trembling  resonance  of  a 
reverberating  soul,  gave  me  back  all  my  tones  with  the 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  241 

beauties  of  an  echo. At  last  we  reached  the  boun- 
dary, over  which  Thiennette  could  not  be  allowed  to 
walk ;  and  now  must  I  part  from  my  gossip,  with  whom 
I  had  talked  so  gayly  every  morning  (each  of  us  from  his 
bed),  and  from  the  still  circuit  of  modest  hope  where  he 
dwelt,  and  return  once  more  to  the  rioting,  fermenting 
Court-sphere,  where  men  in  bull-beggar  tone  demand 
from  Fate  a  root  of  Life-Licorice,  thick  as  the  arm,  like 
the  botanical  one  on  the  Wolga,  not  so  much  that  they 
may  chew  the  sweet  bean  themselves,  as  fell  others  to 
earth  with  it. 

As  I  thought  to  myself  that  I  would  say,  Farewell !  to 
them,  all  the  coming  plagues,  all  the  corpses,  and  all  the 
marred  wishes  of  this  good  pair,  arose  before  my  heart ; 
and  I  remembered  that  little,  save  the  falling  asleep  of 
joy-flowers,  would  mark  the  current  of  their  Life-day,  as 
it  does  of  mine  and  of  every  one's.  —  And  yet  is  it  fairer, 
if  they  measure  their  years  not  by  the  Water-clock  of 
falling  tears,  but  by  the  Flower-clock*  of  asleep-going 
flowers,  whose  bells  in  our  short-lived  garden  are  sinking 
together  before  us  from  hour  to  hour.  — 

I  would  even  now  —  for  I  still  recollect  how  I  hung 
with  streaming  eyes  over  these  two  loved  ones,  as  over 
their  corpses  —  address  myself,  and  say :  Far  too  soft, 
Jean  Paul,  whose  chalk  still  sketches  the  models  of  Na- 
ture on  a  ground  of  Melancholy ;  harden  thy  heart  like 
thy  frame,  and  waste  not  thyself  and  others  by  such 
thoughts.  Yet  why  should  I  do  it,  why  should  I  not  con- 
fess directly  what,  in  the  softest  emotion,  I  said  to  these 
two  beings  ?  "  May  all  go  right  with  you,  ye  mild 
beings,"  I  said,  for  I  no   longer  thought  of  courtesies, 

*  Linn^  formed  in  Upsal  a  flower-clock,  the  flowers  of  which,  by 
their  different  times  of  falling  asleep,  indicated  the  hours -of  the  day. 
11  p 


242  LIFE    OF    QUIXTUS    FIXLEIN. 

'*  may  the  arm  of  Providence  bear  gently  your  lacerated 
lieiU'ts,  and  the  good  Father,  above  all  these  suns  which 
are  now  looking  down  on  us,  keep  you  ever  united,  and 
exalt  you  still  undivided  to  his  bosom  and  his  lips!" 
"  Be  you,  too,  right  happy  and  glad!"  said  Thiennette. 
'•  And  to  you.  Thiennette,"  continued  I,  *'  Ah !  to  your 
pale  cheeks,  to  your  oppressed  heai't,  to  your  long  cold 
maltreated  youth,  I  can  never,  never  wish  enough.  Xo  ! 
But  all  that  can  soothe  a  wounded  soul,  that  can  please  a 
pure  one,  that  can  still  the  hidden  sigh  —  0,  all  that  you 
deserve  —  may  this  be  given  you  ;  and  when  you  see  me 
again,  then  say  to  me,  •  I  am  now  much  happier !  ' " 

We  were  all  of  us  too  deeply  moved.  We  at  last  tore 
ourselves  asunder  from  repeated  embraces  ;  my  friend 
retired  with  the  soul  whom  he  loves,  —  I  remained  alone 
behind  him   witli  the   Xight. 

And  I  walked  without  aim  through  woods,  through 
valleys,  and  over  brooks,  and  through  sleeping  villages, 
to  enjoy  the  great  Xight  like  a  Day.  I  walked,  and  still 
looked  like  the  magnet  to  the  region  of  midnight,  to 
strengthen  my  heart  at  the  gleaming  twihght,  at  this  up- 
stretching  Aurora  of  a  morning  beneath  our  feet  White 
night-butterliies  tiitted.  white  blossoms  fluttered,  white 
stars  fell,  and  the  white  snow-powder  hung  silvery  in  the 
high  Shadow  of  the  Earth,  which  reaches  beyond  the 
Moon,  and  which  is  our  Xight.  Then  began  the  ^olian 
Hai'p  of  the  Creation  to  tremble  and  to  sound,  blown  on 
from  above,  and  my  immortal  soul  was  a  string  in  this 
HiU'p. — The  heart  of  a  brother  everlasting  Man  swelled 
under  the  everlasting  Heaven,  as  the  seas  swell  under 
the  Sun  and  under  the  Moon.  —  The  distant  village- 
clocks  struck  midnight,  mingling,  as  it  were,  with  the 
ever-pealing  tone  of  ancient  Eternity.  —  The  limbs  of  my 


LIFE    OF    QUINTUS    FIXLEIN.  243 

buried  ones  touched  cold  on  my  soul,  and  drove  away  its 
blots,  as  dead  bands  heal  eruptions  of  the  skin.  —  I 
walked  silently  through  little  hamlets,  and  close  by  theii 
outer  churchyards,  where  crumbled  upcast  coffin-boards 
were  glimmering,  while  the  once  bright  eyes  that  had 
lain  in  them  were  mouldered  into  gray  ashes.  —  Cold 
thought !  clutch  not  like  a  cold  spectre  at  my  heart ;  I 
look  up  to  the  starry  sky,  and  an  everlasting  chain 
stretches  thither,  and  over  and  below ;  and  all  is  Life,  and 

Warmth,  and  Light,  and  all  is  godlike  or  God 

Towards  morning  I  descried  thy  late  lights,  little  city 
of  my  dwelling,  which  I  belong  to  on  this  side  the  grave  ; 
I  return  to  the  Earth  ;  and  in  thy  steeples,  behind  the 
by-advanced  great  Midnight,  it  struck  half  past  two ; 
about  this  hour,  in  1794,  Mars  went  down  in  the  west, 
and  the  Moon  rose  in  the  east ;  and  my  soul  desired,  in 
grief  for  the  noble  warlike  blood  which  is  still  streaming 
on  the  blossoms  of  Spring  :  "  Ah,  retire,  bloody  "War,,  like 
red  Mars ;  and  thou,  still  Peace,  come  forth  like  the  mild 
divided  Moon  !  "  — 


ARMY-CHAPLAIN   SCHMELZLE'S 


Journey    to    FlAtz; 


A  RUNNING  COMMENTARY  OF  NOTES. 


TRANSLATED   BY  THOMAS    CARLYLE. 


^:§)o<?> 


PREFACE 


HIS,   I   conceive,   may   be    managed   in   two 

words.  The  first  word  must  relate  to  the 
Circular  Letter  of  Army-Chaplain  Schmelzle, 
wherein  he  describes  to  his  friends  his  Jour- 
ney to  the  metropolitan  city  of  Flatz ;  after  having,  in  an 
Introduction,  premised  some  proofs  and  assurances  of  his 
valor.  Properly  speaking,  the  Journey  itself  has  been 
written  purely  with  a  view  that  his  courageousness,  im- 
pugned by  rumor,  may  be  fully  evinced  and  demonstrated 
by  the  plain  facts  which  he  therein  records.  Whether, 
in  the  mean  time,  there  shall  not  be  found  certain  quick- 
scented  readers,  who  may  infer,  directly  contrariwise, 
that  his  breast  is  not  everywhere  bomb-proof,  especially 
in  the  left  side,  —  on  this  point  I  keep  my  judgment  sus- 
pended. 

For  the  rest,  I  beg  the  judges  of  literature,  as  well  as 
their  satellites,  the  critics  of  literature,  to  regard  this 
Journey,  for  whose  literary  contents  I,  as  Editor,  am 
answerable,  solely  in  the  light  of  a  Portrait  (in  the 
French  sense),  a  little  Sketch  of  Character.  It  is  a  vol- 
untary or  involuntary  comedy-piece,  at  which  I  have 
laughed  so  often,  that  I  purpose  in  time  coming  to  paint 
some   similar   Pictures  of  Charticter  myself.     And,  for 


248   SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ. 

the  present,  when  could  such  a  little  comic  toy  be  more 
fitly  imparted  and  set  forth  to  tlie  world  than  in  these 
very  days,  when  the  sound  both  of  heavy  money  and  of 
light  laughter  has  died  away  from  among  us,  —  when,  like 
the  Turks,  we  count  and  pay  merely  wnth  sealed  purses, 
and  the  coin  within  them  has  vanished? 

Despicable  would  it  seem  to  me,  if  any  clownish  squire 
of  the  goose-quill  should  publicly  and  censoriously  de- 
mand of  me  in  what  way  this  self-cabinet-piece  of 
Schmelzle's  has  come  into  my  hands.  I  know  it  well, 
and  do  not  disclose  it.  This  comedy-piece,  for  which  I, 
at  all  events,  as  my  Bookseller  will  testify,  draw  the 
profit  myself,  I  got  hold  of  so  unblamably,  that  I  await, 
with  unspeakable  composure,  what  the  Army-Chaplain 
shall  please  to  say  against  the  publication  of  it,  in 
case  he  say  anything  at  all.  My  conscience  bears  me 
witness,  that  I  acquired  this  article  at  least  by  more  hon- 
orable methods  than  are  those  of  the  learned  persons  who 
steal  with  their  ears,  who,  in  the  character  of  spiritual  au- 
ditory-thieves, and  class-room  cut-purses  and  pirates,  are 
in  the  habit  of  disloading  their  plundered  Lectures,  and 
vending  them  up  and  down  the  country  as  productions  of 
their  own.  Hitherto,  in  my  whole  life,  I  have  stolen 
little,  except  now  and  then  in  youth  some  —  glances. 

The  second  word  must  explain  or  apologize  for  the  sin- 
gular form  of  this  little  Work,  standing  as  it  does  on  a 
substratum  of  Notes.  I  myself  am  not  contented  wnth 
it.  Let  the  world  open,  and  look,  and  determine,  in  like 
manner.  But  the  truth  is,  this  line  of  demarcation, 
stretching  through  the  whole  book,  originated  in  the  fol- 
lowing accident :  certain  thoughts  (or  digressions)  of  my 
own,  with  which  it  was  not  permitted  me  to  disturb  those 
of  the  Army-Chaplain,  arfd  which  could  only  be  allowed 


PREFACE.  249 

to  fight  behind  the  lines,  in  the  shape  of  Notes,  I,  with 
a  view  to  conveniency  and  order,  had  written  down  in 
a  separate  paper ;  at  the  same  time,  as  will  be  observed, 
regularly  providing  every  Note  with  its  Number,  and 
thus  referring  it  to  the  proper  page  of  the  main  Manu- 
script. But,  in  the  copying  of  the  latter,  I  had  forgotten 
to  insert  the  corresponding  numbers  in  the  Text  itself. 
Therefore,  let  no  man,  any  more  than  I  do,  cast  a  stone 
at  my  worthy  Printer,  inasmuch  as  he  (perhaps  in  the 
thought  that  it  was  my  way,  that  I  had  some  purpose  in 
it)  took  these  Notes,  just  as  they  stood,  pellmell,  without 
arrangement  of  Numbers,  and  clapped  them  under  the 
Text ;  at  the  same  time,  by  a  praiseworthy,  artful  compu- 
tation, taking  care,  at  least,  that  at  the  bottom  of  every 
page  in  the  Text  there  should  some  portion  of  this  glit- 
tering Note-precipitate  make  its  appearance.  Well,  the 
thing  at  any  rate  is  done,  nay,  perpetuated,  namely, 
printed.  After  all,  I  might  almost  partly  rejoice  at  it. 
For,  in  good  truth,  had  I  meditated  for  years  (as  I  have 
done  for  the  last  twenty)  how  to  provide  for  my  digres- 
sion-comets new  orbits,  if  not  focal  suns,  for. my  episo  ks 
new  epopees,  —  I  could  scarce  possibly  have  hit  upon  a 
better  or  more  spacious  Limbo  for  such  Vanities  than 
Chance  and  Printer  here  accidentally  offer  me  ready- 
made.  I  have  only  to  regret  that  the  thing  has  been 
printed  before  I  could  turn  it  to  account.  Heavens ! 
what  remotest  allusions  (had  I  known  it  before  printing) 
might  not  have  been  privily  introduced  in  every  Text- 
page  and  Note-number ;  and  what  apparent  incongruity 
in  the  real  congruity  between  this  upper  and  under  side 
of  the  cards  I  How  vehemently  and  devilishly  might  one 
not  have  cut  aloft,  and  to  the  right  and  left,  from  these 

impregnable  casemates  and  covered-ways ;  and  what  IcBsio 
ll# 


250   SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ. 

ultra  dimidium  (injuiy  beyond  the  half  of  the  Text) 
might  not,  with  these  satirical  injuries,  have  been  effected 
and  completed ! 

But  Fate  meant  not  so  kindly  with  me ;  of  this  golden 
harvest-field  of  satire  I  was  not  to  be  informed  till  three 
days  before  the  Preface. 

Perhaps,  however,  the  writing  world,  by  the  little  blue 
flame  of "  this  accident,  mav  be  oruided  to  a  weightier 
acquisition,  to  a  larger  subterranean  treasure,  than  I, 
alas  I  have  dug  up.  For,  to  the  writer,  there  i*  now  a 
way  pointed  out  of  producing  in  one  marbled  volume  a 
group  of  altogether  different  works;  of  writing  in  one 
leaf,  for  both  sexes  at  the  same  time,  without  confounding 
them,  nay,  for  the  five  faculties  all  at  once,  without  dis- 
turbing their  limitations ;  since  now,  instead  of  boiling  up 
a  vile,  fermenting  shove-together,  fit  for  nobody,  he  has 
nothing  to  do  but  draw  his  note-lines  or  partition-lines  ; 
and  so  on  his  five-story  leaf  give  board  and  lodging  to  the 
most  discordant  heads.  Perhaps  one  might  then  read 
m:iny  a  book  for  the  fourth  time,  simply  because  every 
time  one  had  read  but  a  fourth  part  of  it. 

On  the  whole,  this  Work  has  at  least  the  property  of 
being  a  short  one ;  so  that  the  reader,  I  hope,  may  almost 
run  through  it.  and  read  it  at  the  bookseller's  counter, 
without,  as  in  the  case  of  thicker  volumes,  first  needing 
to  buy  it.  And  why,  indeed,  in  this  world  of  ^Matter 
should  anything  whatever  be  great,  except  only  what 
belongs  not  to  it,  the  world  of  Spirit  ? 

Jean  Paul  Fr.  Richter. 

^ayvtuth,  in  the  Bay  and  Peace  Mo/ith,  1707. 


SCHMELZLE'S 


JOURNEY   TO    FLATZ. 


Circular  Letter  of  the  proposed  Catechetical  Professor 
Attila  Schmelzle  to  his  Friends  ;  containing  some 
Account  of  a  Holidays'  Journey  to  Fldtz,  with  an  In- 
troduction, touching  his  Flight,  and  his  Courage  as 
former  Army- Chaplain. 


^x^lOTHING  can  be  more  ludicrous,  my  esteemed 
Fnends,  than  to  hear  people  stigmatizing  a 
man  as  cowardly  and  hare-hearted,  who  per- 
haps is  struggling  all  the  while  with  precisely 
the  opposite  faults,  those  of  a  lion  ;  though  indeed  the 
African  lion  himself,  since  the  time  of  Sparrmann's 
Travels,  passes  among  us  for  poltroon.  Yet  this  case 
is  mine,  worthy  Friends  ;  and  I  purpose  to  say  a  few 
words  thereupon,  before  describing  my  journey. 

You  in  truth  are  all  aware  that,  directly  in  the  teeth 
of  this  calumny,  it  is  courage,  it  is  desperadoes  (provided 
they  be  not  braggarts  and  tumultuous  persons),  whom  I 

103.  Good  princes  easily  obtain  good  subjects  ;  not  so  easily  good 
subjects  good  princes;  thus  Adam,  in  the  state  of  innocence,  ruled 
over  animals  all  tame  and  gentle,  till  simply  through  his  means  they 
fell  and  grew  savage. 


252   SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ. 

chiefly  venerate ;  for  example,  my  brother-in-law,  the 
Dragoon,  who  never  in  his  life  bastinadoed  one  man,  but 
always  a  whole  social  circle  at  the  same  time.  How 
truculent  was  my  fancy,  even  in  childhood,  when  I,  as 
the  parson  was  toning  away  to  the  silent  congregation, 
used  to  take  it  into  my  head :  "  How  now,  if  thou 
shouldst  start  up  from  thy  pew,  and  shout  aloud,  I  am 
here  too,  Mr.  Parson ! "  and  to  paint  out  this  thought  in 
such  glowing  colors,  that,  for  very  dread,  I  have  often 
been  obliged  to  leave  the  church  !  Anything  like  Rugen- 
da's  battle-pieces ;  horrid  murder-tumults,  sea-fights  or 
Stormings  of  Toulon,  exploding  fleets  ;  and,  in  my  child- 
hood, Battles  of  Prague  on  the  harpsichord ;  nay,  in 
short,  every  map  of  any  remarkable  scene  of  war ;  these 
are  perhaps  too  much  my  favorite  objects  ;  and  I  read  — 
and  purchase  nothing  sooner ;  and  doubtless  they  might 
lead  me  into  many  errors,  were  it  not  that  my  circum- 
stances restrain  me.  Now,  if  it  be  objected  that  true 
courage  is  something  higher  than  mere  thinking  and  will- 
ing, then  you,  my  worthy  friends,  will  be  the  first  to 
recognize  mine,  when  it  shall  break  forth  into  not  barren 
and  empty,  but  active  and  effective  words,  while  I 
strengthen  my  future  Catechetical  Pupils,  as  well  as  can 
be  done  in  a  course  of  College  Lectures,  and  steel  them 
into  Christian  heroes. 

It  is  well  known  that,  out  of  care  for  the  preservation 
of  my  life,  I  never  walk  within  at  least  ten  fields  of  any 
shore  full  of  bathers  or  swimmers  ;  merely  because  I  fore- 
see to  a  certainty,  that,  in  case  one  of  them  were  drown- 
ing, I  should  that  moment  (for  the  heart  overbalances  the 
head)  plunge  after  the  fool  to  save  him,  into  some  bot- 

5.  For  a  good  Physician  saves,  if  not  always  from  the  disease,  at 
least  from  a  bad  Physician. 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOUENEY  TO  FLAETZ.   253 

tomless  depth  or  other,  where  we  should  both  perish. 
And  if  dreaming  is  the  reflex  of  waking,  let  me  ask  you, 
true  Hearts,  if  you  have  forgotten  my  relating  to  you 
dreams  of  mine,  which  no  Caesar,  no  Alexander  or  Luther, 
need  have  felt  ashamed  of?  Have  I  not,  to  mention  a 
few  instances,  taken  Rome  by  storm ;  and  done  battle 
with  the  Pope  and  the  whole  elephantine  body  of  the 
Cardinal  College,  at  one  and  the  same  time  ?  Did  I  not 
once  on  horseback,  while  simply  looking  at  a  review  of 
military,  dash  headlong  into  a  bataillon  quarre ;  and 
then  capture,  in  Aix-la-Chapelle,  the  Peruke  of  Charle- 
magne, for  which  the  town  pays  yearly  ten  reichsthalers 
of  barber-money  ;  and  carrying  it  off  to  Halberstadt  von 
Gleim,  there  in  like  manner  seize  the  Great  Frederick's 
Hat ;  put  both  Peruke  and  Hat  on  my  head,  and  yet  re- 
turn home,  after  I  had  stormed  their  batteries  and  turned 
the  cannon  against  the  cannoneers  themselves  ?  Did  I 
not  once  submit  to  be  made  a  Jew  of,  and  then  be  regaled 
with  hams  ;  though  they  were  ape-hams  on  the  Orinoco 
(see  Humboldt)  ?  And  a  thousand  such  things ;  for  I 
have  thrown  the  Consistorial  President  of  Flatz  out  of 
the  Palace  window ;  those  alarm-fulminators,  sold  by 
Heinrich  Backofen  in  Gotha,  at  six ,  groschen  the  dozen, 
and  each  going  off  like  a  cannon,  I  have  listened  to  so 
calmly  that  the  fulminators  did  not  even  awaken  me  ;  and 
more  of  the  like  sort. 

But  enough  !  It  is  now  time  briefly  to  touch  that  fur- 
ther slander  of  my  chaplainship,  which  unhappily  bus 
likewise  gained  some  circulation  in  Flatz,  but  which,  as 
Caesar  did  Alexander,  I  shall  now  by  my  touch  dissipate 
into  dust.     Be  what  truth  in  it  there  can,  it  is  still  little 

100.  In  books  lie  the  Phoenix-ashes  of  a  past  Millennium  and  Para- 
dise ;  but  War  blows,  and  much  ashes  are  scattered  away. 


254   SCHMELZLES  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ. 

or  nothing.  Your  great  ^Minister  an.l  General  in  Flatz 
(perhajis  the  very  greatest  in  the  world,  for  there  are  not 
many  Schabackei*s)  may  indeed,  like  any  other  great 
man,  be  turned  against  me  ;  but  not  with  the  Artillery  of 
Truth  :  for  this  Ai'tilleiy  I  here  set  before  you,  my  good 
Hearts,  and  do  you  but  tire  it  off  for  my  advantage  !  The 
matter  is  this.  Certain  foolish  rumors  are  afloat  in  the 
Fliitz  country,  that  I,  on  occasion  of  some  important  bat- 
tles, took  leg-bail  (such  is  their  plebeian  phi*ase),  and 
that  afterwards,  on  the  Chaplain's  being  called  for  to 
preach  a  Thanksgiving  sermon  for  the  victory,  no  chap- 
lain whatever  was  to  be  found.  The  ridiculousness  of 
this  story  will  best  appear,  when  I  tell  you  that  I  never 
was  in  any  action ;  but  have  always  been  accustomed, 
several  houi*s  prior  to  such  an  event,  to  withdraw  so  many 
miles  to  the  rear,  that  our  men,  so  soon  as  they  were 
beaten,  would  be  sure  to  find  me.  A  good  retreat  is 
reckoned  the  masterpiece  in  the  art  of  war ;  and  at  no 
time  can  a  retreat  be  executed  with  such  order,  force,  and 
security  as  just  before  the  battle,  when  you  are  not  yet 
beaten. 

It  is  true.  I  might  perhaps,  as  expectant  Professor  of 
Catechetics,  sit  still  and  smile  at  such  nugatory  specula- 
tions on  my  courage  ;  for  if  by  Socratic  questioning  I  can 
hammer  my  futm-e  Catechist  Pupils  into  the  habit  of  ask- 
ing questions  in  their  turn.  I  shall  thereby  have  tempered 
them  into  heroes,  seeing  they  have  nothing  to  fight  with 
but  children  —  (Catechists  at  all  events,  though  dreading 
fire,  have  no  reason  to  dread  light,  since  in  our  days,  as 
in  Loudon  illuminations,  it  is  only  the  unJighted  windows 

102.  Dear  Political  or  Religions  Inquisitor  !  Art  thou  aware  that 
Turin  tapei*s  never  rightly  begin  shining  till  thou  breakest  them,  and 
then  tliev  take  fire? 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ.   255 

that  are  battered  in  ;  whereas,  in  other  ages,  it  was  with 
nations  and  light  as  it  is  with  dogs  and  water ;  if  you 
give  them  none  for  a  long  time,  they  at  last  get  a  horror 
at  it) ;  —  and  on  the  whole,  for  Catechists,  any  park  looks 
kindlier,  and  smiles  more  sweetly,  than  a  sulphurous 
park  of  artillery ;  and  the  Warlike  Foot,  which  the  age 
is  placed  on,  is  to  them  the  true  Devil's  cloven-foot  of 
human  nature. 

But  for  my  part  I  think  not  so  ;  almost  as  if  the  party 
spirit  of  my  Christian  name,  Attila,  had  passed  into  me 
more  strongly  than  was  proper,  I  feel  myself  impelled 
still  further  to  prove  my  courageousness  ;  which,  dearest 
Friends  !  I  shall  here  in  a  few  lines  again  do.  This 
proof  I  could  manage  by  mere  inferences  and  learned 
citations.  For  example,  if  Galen  remarks  that  animals 
with  large  hind-quarters  are  timid,  I  have  nothing  to  do 
but  turn  round,  and  show  the  enemy  my  back  and  what 
is  under  it,  in  order  to  convince  him  that  I  am  not  defi- 
cient in  valor,  but  in  flesh.  Again,  if  by  well-known 
experiences  it  has  been  found  that  flesh-eating  produces 
courage,  I  can  evince  that  in  this  particular  I  yield  to  no 
officer  of  the  service ;  though  it  is  the  habit  of  these  gen- 
tlemen not  only  to  run  up  long  scores  of  roast-meat  with 
their  landlords,  but  also  to  leave  them  unpaid,  that  so  at 
every  hour  they  may  have  an  open  document  in  the 
hands  of  the  enemy  himself  (the  landlord),  testifying 
that  they  have  eaten  their  own  share  (with  some  of  other 
people's  too),  and  so  put  common  butcher-meat  on  a 
War-footing,  living  not  like  others  hy  bravery,  but  for 
bravery.  As  little  have  I  ever,  in  my  character  of  chap- 
lain, shrunk  from  comparison  with  any  officer  in  the  regi- 

86.  Very  true !  In  youth  we  love  and  enjoy  the  most  ill-assorted 
friends,  perhaps  more  than,  in  old  age,  the  best  assorted. 


256   SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ. 

ment,  who  may  be  a  true  lion,  and  so  snatch  every  sort 
of  plunder,  but  yet,  like  this  King  of  the  Beasts,  is  afraid 
of  jire  ;  or  who,  —  like  King  James  of  England,*  that 
scampered  off  at  sight  of  drawn  swords,  yet  so  much  the 
more  gallantly,  before  all  Europe,  went  out  against  the 
storming  Luther  with  book  and  pen,  —  does,  from  a  simi- 
lar idiosyncrasy,  attack  all  warlike  armaments,  both  by 
word  and  writing.  And  here  I  recollect,  with  satisfac- 
tion, a  brave  sub-lieutenant,  whose  confessor  I  was  (he 
still  owes  me  the  confession-money),  and  who,  in  respect 
of  stout-heartedness,  had  in  him  perhaps  something  of 
that  Indian  dog  which  Alexander  had  presented  to  him 
as  a  sort  of  Dog-Alexander.  By  way  of  trying  this  crack 
dog,  the  Macedonian  made  various  heroic  or  heraldic 
beasts  be  let  loose  against  him  ;  first  a  stag  ;  but  the  dog 
lay  still ;  then  a  sow  ;  he  lay  still ;  then  a  bear  ;  he  lay 
still.  Alexander  was  on  the  point  of  condemning  him  ; 
when  a  lion  was  let  forth  ;  the  dog  rose,  and  tore  the  lion 
in  pieces.  So  likewise  the  sub-lieutenant.  A  challenger, 
a  foreign  enemy,  a  Frenchman,  are  to  hira  only  stag,  and 
sow,  and  bear,  and  he  lies  still  in  his  place  ;  but  let  his 
oldest  enemy,  his  creditor,  come  and  knock  at  his  gate, 
and  demand  of  him  actual  smart-money  for  long  bygone 
pleasures,  thus  presuming  to  rob  him  both  of  past  and 
present ;  the  sub-lieutenant  rises,  and  throws  his  creditor 
down-stairs.  I,  alas  !  am  still  standing  by  the  sow  ;  and 
thus,  naturally  enough,  misunderstood. 

Quo,  says  Livy,  xii.  5,  and  with  great  justice,  quo  ti- 
moris  mimis  est,  eo  minus  ferme  periculi  est,  The  less  fear 

128.    In  Love  there  are  Summer  Holidays;   but  in  Marriage  also 
there  are  Winter  Holidays,  I  hope. 

*  The  good  Professor  of  Catechetics  is  out  here.     Indignor  quan- 
doque  bonus  doivrnitat  Schmelzle.  —  Ed. 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ.   257 

you  have,  the  less  danger  you  are  hkely  to  be  in.  With 
equal  justice  I  invert  the  maxim,  and  sa}^,  The  less  the 
danger,  the  smaller  the  fear ;  nay,  there  may  be  situations 
in  which  one  has  absolutely  no  knowledge  of  fear ;  and 
among  these  mine  is  to  be  reckoned.  The  more  hateful, 
therefore,  must  that  calumny  about  hare-heartedness  ap- 
pear to  me. 

To  my  Holidays'  Journey  I  shall  prefix  a  few  facts, 
which  prove  how  easily  foresight  —  that  is  to  say,  when  a 
person  would  not  resemble  the  stupid  marmot,  that  will 
even  attack  a  man  out  on  horseback  —  may  pass  for  cow- 
ardice. For  the  rest,  I  wish  only  that  I  could  with  equal 
ease  wipe  away  a  quite  different  reproach,  that  of  being 
a  foolhardy  desperado ;  though  I  trust,  in  the  sequel,  I 
shall  be  able  to  advance  some  facts  which  invalidate  it. 

What  boots  the  heroic  arm,  without  a  hero's  eye  ? 
The  former  readily  grows  stronger  and  more  nervous ; 
but  the  latter  is  not  so  soon  ground  sharper,  like  glasses. 
Nevertheless,  the  merits  of  foresight  obtain  from  the  mass 
of  men  less  admiration  (nay,  I  should  say,  more  ridicule) 
than  those  of  courage.  Whoso,  for  instance,  shall  see  me 
walking  under  quite  cloudless  skies  with  a  wax-cloth  um- 
brella over  me,  to  him  I  shall  probably  appear  ridiculous, 
so  long  as  he  is  not  aware  that  I  carry  this  umbrella  as  a 
thunder-screen,  to  keep  off  any  bolt  out  of  the  blue  heaven 
(whereof  there  are  several  examples  in  the  history  of  the 
Middle  Ages)  from  striking  me  to  death.  My  thunder- 
screen,  in  fact,  is  exactly  that  of  Reimarus.  On  a  long 
walking-stick  I  carry  the  wax-cloth  roof;  from  the  peak 

143.  Women  have  weekly  at  least  one  active  and  passive  day  of  glory, 
the  holy  day,  the  Sunday.  The  higher  ranks  alone  have  more  Sundays 
than  work-days;  as,  in  great  towns,  you  can  celebrate  your  Sunday  on 
Friday  with  the  Turks,  on  Saturday  with  the  Jews,  and  on  Sunday 
with  yourself. 

Q 


258   SCHMELZLE'S  JOURXEY  TO  FLAETZ. 

of  wliicli  depends  a  string  of  gold-lace  as  a  conductor^ 
and  tin's,  by  means  of  a  key  fastened  to  it,  which  it  trails 
along  the  ground,  will  lead  off  every  possible  bolt,  and 
easily  distribute  it  over  the  whole  superficies  of  the  Earth. 
With  this  Paratonnerre  Portatif  in  my  hand,  I  can  walk 
about  for  weeks  under  the  clear  sky,  without  the  smallest 
danger.  This  Diving-bell,  moreover,  protects  me  against 
somethmg  else  ;  against  shot.  For  who,  in  the  latter  end 
of  Harvest,  will  give  me  black  on  white  that  no  lurking 
ninny  of  a  sportsman  somewhere,  when  I  am  out  enjo}ang 
Nature,  shall  so  fire  off  his  piece,  at  an  angle  of  45°,  that, 
in  falling  down  again,  the  shot  needs  only  light  directly 
on  my  crown,  and  so  come  to  the  same  as  if  I  had  been 
shot  through  the  brain  from  a  side  ? 

It  is  bad  enough,  at  any  rate,  that  we  have  nothing  to 
guard  us  from  the  Moon  ;  which  at  present  is  bombarding 
us  with  stones  like  a  very  Turk  ;  for  this  paltry  little 
Earth's  train-bearer  and  errand-maid  thinks,  in  these  re- 
bellious times,  that  she  too  must  begin,  forsooth,  to  sling 
somewhat  against  her  Mother  !  In  good  truth,  as  matters 
stand,  any  young  Catechist  of  feeling  may  go  out  o'  nights, 
with  whole  limbs,  into  the  moonshine,  a  meditating  ;  and 
erelong  (in  the  midst  of  his  meditation  the  villanous 
Satellite  hits  him)  come  home  a  pounded  jeUy.  By 
Heaven!  new  proofs  of  courage  are  required  of  us  on 
every  hand  !  No  sooner  have  we,  with  great  effort,  got 
thunder-rods  manufactured,  and  comet-tails  explained 
away,  than  the  enemy  opens  new  batteries  in  the  Moon, 
or  somewhere  else  in  the  Blue  ! 

Suffice  one  other  story  to  manifest  how  ludicrous  the 

21.  Schiller  and  Klopstock  are  Poetic  Mirrors  held  up  to  the  Sun- 
god;  the  Mirrors  reflect  the  Sun  with  such  dazzling  brightness,  that 
3'ou  cannot  find  the  Picture  of  the  World  imaged  forth  in  them. 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ.   259 

most  serious  foresight,  with  all  imaginable  inward  cour- 
age, often  externally  appears  in  the  eyes  of  the  many. 
Equestrians  are  well  acquainted  with  the  dangers  of  a 
horse  that  runs  away.  My  evil  star  would  have  it  that 
I  should  once  in  Vienna  get  upon  a  hack-horse  ;  a  pretty 
enough  honey-colored  nag,  but  old  and  hard-mouthed  as 
Satan  ;  so  that  the  beast,  in  the  next  street,  went  off  with 
me  ;  and  this  in  truth  —  only  at  a  walk.  No  pulling,  no 
tugging,  took  effect ;  I  at  last,  on  the  back  of  this  Self- 
riding-horse,  made  signals  of  distress,  and  cried :  "  Stop 
him,  good  people !  for  God's  sake  stop  him  !  my  horse  is 
off! "  But  these  simple  persons  seeing  the  beast  move 
along  as  slowly  as  a  Reichshofrath  lawsuit,  or  the  Daily 
Postwagen,  could  not  in  the  least  understand  the  matter, 
till  I  cried  as  if  possessed :  "  Stop  him  then,  ye  block- 
heads and  joltheads  !  don't  you  see  that  I  cannot  hold  the 
nag  ? "  But  now,  to  these  noodles  the  sight  of  a  hard- 
mouthed  horse  going  off  with  its  rider  step  by  step  seemed 
ridiculous  rather  than  otherwise  ;  half  Vienna  gathered 
itself  like  a  comet-tail  behind  my  beast  and  me.  Prince 
Kaunitz,  the  best  horseman  of  the  century  (the  last), 
pulled  up  to  follow  me.  I  myself  sat  and  swam  like  a 
perpendicular  piece  of  drift-ice  on  my  honey-colored 
nag,  which  stalked  on,  on,  step  by  step  ;  a  many-cor- 
nered, red-coated  letter-carrier  was  delivering  his  letters, 
to  the  right  and  left,  in  the  various  stories,  and  he  still 
crossed  over  before  me  again,  with  satirical  features,  be- 
cause the  nag  went  along  too  slowly.  The  Schwanz- 
schleuderer,  or  Train-dasher  (the  person,  as  you  know,  who 
drives  along  the  streets  with  a  huge  barrel  of  water,  and 
besplashes  them  with  a  leathern  pipe  of  three  ells  long 

34.  Women  are  like  precious  carved  works  of  ivory:   nothing  is 
whiter  and  smoother,  and  nothing  sooner  grows  yellow. 


26o      SCIIMELZLE'S    JOURNEY    TO    FLAETZ. 

from  an  iron  tronp;h),  came  across  the  haunches  of  my 
horse,  and,  in  the  course  of  his  duty,  wetted  both  these 
and  myself  in  a  very  coohng  manner,  though,  for  my  part, 
1  liad  too  mucli  cokl  sweat  on  me  ah-eady  to  need  any 
fresh  refrigeration.  On  my  infernal  Trojan  Horse  (only 
I  myself  was  Troy,  not  beridden,  but  riding  to  destruc- 
tion), I  arrived  at  IMalzlein  (a  suburb  of  Vienna),  or 
perhaps,  so  confused  were  my  senses,  it  might  be  quite 
another  range  of  streets.  At  last,  late  in  the  dusk,  I  had 
to  turn  into  the  Prater ;  and  here,  long  after  the  Evening 
Gun,  to  my  horror,  and  quite  against  the  police-rules, 
keep  riding  to  and  fro  on  my  honey-colored  nag ;  and 
possibly  I  niight  even  have  passed  the  night  on  liim,  had 
not  my  brother-in-law,  the  Dragoon,  observed  my  plight, 
and  so  found  me  still  sitting  firm  as  a  rock  on  my  runa- 
way steed.  lie  made  no  cerenionies  ;  caught  the  brute  ; 
and  put  the  pleasant  question,  why  I  had  not  vaulted,  and 
come  off  by  ground-and-lofty  tumbling ;  though  he  knew 
full  Avell  that  ibr  this  a  wooden  horse,  which  stands  still, 
is  requisite.  However,  he  took  me  down;  and  so,  after 
all  this  riding,  horse  and  man  got  home  with  whole  skins 
and  unbroken  bones. 

But  now  at  last  to  my  Journey  ! 


JOURNEY   TO    FLATZ. 

You  are  aware,  my  friends,  that  this  Journey  to  Fliitz 
was  necessarily  to  take  place  in  Vacation  time ;  not  only 
because  the  Cattle-market,  and  consequently  the  Minister 
and  General  von  Schabacker,  was  there  then ;  but  more 

72.  The  H:ili-learned  is  adored  by  the  Quarter-learned;  the  latter 
by  the  Sixteenth-part-lcarned;  and  so  on:  but  not  the  ^^^lole-learued 
by  the  Halt-learned. 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ.   261 

especially  because  the  latter  (as  I  had  it  positively  from 
a  private  hand)  did  annually,  on  the  23d  of  July,  the 
market-eve,  about  five  o'clock,  become  so  full  of  gaudium 
and  graciousness,  that  in  many  cases  he  did  not  so  much 
snarl  on  people  as  listen  to  them,  and  grant  their  prayers. 
The  cause  of  this  gaudium  I  had  rather  not  trust  to 
paper.  In  short,  my  Petition,  praying  that  he  would  be 
pleased  to  indemnify  and  reward  me,  as  an  unjustly  de- 
posed army-chaplain,  by  a  Catechetical  Professorship, 
could  plainly  be  presented  to  him  at  no  better  season 
than  exactly  about  five  o'clock  in  the  evening  of  the  first 
dog-day.  In  less  than  a  week  I  had  finished  writing  my 
Petition.  As  I  spared  neither  summaries  nor  copies  of 
it,  I  had  soon  got  so  far  as  to  see  the  relatively  best  lying 
completed  before  me ;  when,  to  my  terror,  I  observed 
that  in  this  paper  I  had  introduced  above  thirty  dashes, 
or  breaks,  in  the  middle  of  my  sentences  !  Now-a-days, 
alas !  these  stings  shoot  forth  involuntarily  from  learned 
pens,  as  tails  of  wasps.  I  debated  long  within  myself 
whether  a  private  scholar  could  justly  be  entitled  to  ap- 
proach a  minister  with  dashes,  —  greatly  as  this  level 
interlineation  of  thoughts,  these  horizontal  note-marks  of 
poetical  77^Ms^c-pieces,  and  these  rope-ladders  or  Achilles'- 
tendons  of  philosophical  5ee-pieces,  are  at  present  fash- 
ionable and  indispensable ;  but,  at  last,  I  was  obliged  (as 
erasures  may  offend  people  of  quality)  to  write  my  best 
proof-petition  over  again ;  and  then  to  afflict  myself  for 
another  quarter  of  an  hour  over  the  name  Attila 
Schmelzle,  seeing  it  is  always  my  principle  that  this 
and  the  address  of  the  letter,  the  two  cardinal  points  of 
the  whole,  can  never  be  written  legibly  enough. 

35.  Bien  ecouter  c'est  presque  repondre,  says  Marivaux  justly  of  so- 
cial circles;  but  I  extend  it  to  round  Councillor-tables  and  Cabinet- 
tables,  where  reports  are  made,  and  the  Prince  listens. 


262      SCHMELZLE'S    JOURNEY    TO    FLAETZ. 

First  Stage;   from  Neusattel  to  Vierstddten. 

The  22d  of  July,  or  Wednesday,  about  five  in  the 
afternoon,  was  now,  by  the  way-bill  of  the  regular  Post- 
coach,  irrevocably  fixed  for  my  departure.  I  had  still 
half  a  day  to  order  my  house ;  from  which,  for  two 
nights  and  two  days  and  a  half,  my  breast,  its  breast- 
work and  palisado,  was  now,  along  with  my  Self,  to  be 
witlidrawn.  Besides  this,  my  good  wife  Bergelchen,  as 
T  call  my  Teutoberga,  was  immediately  to  travel  after 
me,  on  Friday  the  24th,  in  order  to  see  and  to  make  pur- 
chases at  the  yearly  Fair ;  nay,  she  was  ready  to  have 
gone  along  with  me,  the  faithful  sjiouse.  I  therefore 
assembled  my  little  knot  of  domestics,  and  promulgated 
to  them  the  Household  Law  and  Valedictory  Rescript, 
which,  after  my  departure,  in  the  fii*st  place  before  the 
outset  of  my  wife,  and  in  the  second  place  after  tliis  out- 
set, they  had  rigorously  to  obey;  explaining  to  them 
especially  whatever,  in  case  of  conflagrations,  house- 
breakings, thunder-storms,  or  transits  of  troops,  it  would 
behoove  them  to  do.  To  my  wife  I  delivered  an  inven- 
tory of  the  best  goods  in  our  little  Registership ;  which 
goods  she,  in  case  the  house  took  fire,  had,  in  the  first 
place,  to  secure.  I  ordered  her  in  stormy  nights  (the 
peculiar  thief-weather)  to  put  our  ^olian  harp  in  the 
window,  that  so  any  villanous  prowler  might  imagine  I 
was  fantasying  on  my  instrument,  and  therefore  awake ; 
for  like  reasons,  also,  to  take  the  house-dog  within  doors 
by  day,  that  he  might  sleep  then,  and  so  be  liveHer  at 
night.     I  further  counselled  her  to  have  an  eye  on  the 

17.  The  Bed  of  Honor,  since  so  frequently  whole  regiments  lie  on 
it,  and  receive  their  last  unction,  and  last  honor  but  one,  really  ought 
from  time  to  time  be  new-filled,  beaten,  and  sunned. 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ.   263 

focus  of  every  knot  in  the  panes  of  the  stable-window, 
nay,  on  every  glass  of  water  she  might  set  down  in  the 
house ;  as  I  had  already  often  recounted  to  her  examples 
of  such  accidental  burning-glasses  having  set  whole  build- 
ings in  flames.  I  then  appointed  her  the  hour  when  she 
was  to  set  out  on  Friday  morning  to  follow  me;  and 
recapitulated  more  emphatically  the  household  precepts 
which,  prior  to  her  departure,  she  must  afresh  inculcate 
on  her  domestics.  My  dear,  heart-sound,  blooming  Berga 
answered  her  faithful  lord,  as  it  seemed  very  seriously : 
"  Go  thy  ways,  little  old  one ;  it  shall  all  be  done  as 
smooth  as  velvet.  Wert  thou  but  away  !  There  is  no 
end  of  thee ! "  Her  brother,  my  brother-in-law,  the 
Dragoon,  for  whom,  out  of  complaisance,  I  had  paid  the 
coach-fare,  in  order  to  have  in  the  vehicle  along  with  me 
a  stout  swordsman  and  hector,  as  spiritual  relative  and 
bully-rock,  so  to  speak ;  the  Dragoon,  I  say,  on  hearing 
these  my  regulations,  puckered  up  (which  I  easily  for- 
gave the  wild  soldier  and  bachelor)  his  sun-burnt  face 
considerably  into  ridicule,  and  said :  "  Were  I  in  thy 
place,  sister,  I  should  do  what  I  liked,  and  then  after- 
wards take  a  peep  into  these  regulation-papers  of  his." 

"  Oh ! "  answered  I,  "  misfortune  may  conceal  itself 
like  a  scorpion  in  any  comer ;  I  might  say,  we  are  like 
children,  who,  looking  at  their  gayly  painted  toy-box,  soon 
pull  off  the  lid,  and,  pop !  out  springs  a  mouse  who  has 
young  ones." 

"Mouse,  mouse!"  said  he,  stepping  up  and  down. 
"  But,  good  brother,  it  is  five  o'clock ;  and  you  will  find, 
when  you  return,  that  all  looks  exactly  as  it  does  to-day ; 
the  dog  like  the  dog,  and  my  sister  like  a  pretty  woman  ; 

120.  Many  a  one  becomes  a  free-spoken  Diogenes,  not  when  he 
dwells  in  the  Cask,  but  when  the  Cask  dwells  in  him. 


264  SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ. 

allons  done !  "  It  was  purely  his  blame  that  I,  fearing 
his  misconceptions,  had  not  previously  made  a  sort  of 
testament. 

I  now  packed  in  two  different  sorts  of  medicines,  heat- 
ing as  well  as  cooling,  against  two  different  possibilities  ; 
also  mj  old  splints  for  arm  or  leg  breakages,  in  case  the 
coach  overset;  and  (out  of  foresight)  two  times  the 
money  I  was  likely  to  need.  Only  here  I  could  have 
wished,  so  uncertain  is  the  stowage  of  such  things,  that  I 
had  been  an  Ape  with  cheek-pouches,  or  some  sort  of 
Opossum  with  a  natural  bag,  that  so  I  might  have  repos- 
ited  these  necessaries  of  existence  in  pockets  which  were 
sensitive.  Shaving  is  a  task  I  always  go  through  before 
setting  out  on  journeys ;  having  a  rational  mistrust 
against  stranger  bloodtliirsty  barbers  ;  but,  on  this  occa- 
sion, I  retained  my  beard ;  smce,  however  close  shaved,  it 
would  have  grown  again  by  the  road  to  such  a  length 
that  I  could  have  fronted  no  ISIinister  and  General  with  it. 

With  a  vehement  emotion,  I  threw  myself  on  the  pith- 
heart  of  my  Berga,  and  vAi\\  a  still  more  vehement 
one,  tore  myself  away;  in  her,  however,  this  our  first 
marriage-separation  seemed  to  produce  less  lamentation 
than  triumph,  less  consternation  than  rejoicing;  simply 
because  she  turned  her  eye  not  half  so  much  on  the 
parting,  as  on  the  meeting,  and  the  journey  after  me, 
and  the  wonders  of  the  Fair.  Yet  she  threw  and  hung 
herself  on  my  somewhat  long  and  thin  neck  and  body, 
almost  painfully,  being,  indeed,  a  too  fleshy  and  weighty 
load,  and  said  to  me  :  "  Whisk  thee  off  quick,  my  charming 
Attel  (Attila),  and  trouble  thy  head  with  no  cares  by  the 
way,  thou  singular  man !     A  whiff  or  two  of  ill  luck  we 

3.  Culture  makes  whole  lands,  for  instance  Germany,  Gaul,  and 
others,  physically  ^yarmer,  but  spiritually  colder. 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOURXEY  TO  FLAETZ.   265 

can  stand,  by  God's  help,  so  long  as  my  father  is  no  beg- 
gar. And  for  thee,  Franz,"  continued  she,  turning  with 
some  heat  to  her  brother,  "  I  leave  my  Attel  on  thy  soul ; 
thou  well  knowest,  thou  wild  fly,  what  I  wilt  do,  if  thou 
play  the  fool,  and  leave  him  anywhere  in  the  lurch." 
Her  meaning  here  was  good,  and  I  could  not  take  it  ill ; 
to  you,  also,  my  Friends,  her  wealth  and  her  open-heart- 
edness  are  nothing  new. 

Melted  into  sensibility,  I  said :  "  Now,  Berga,  if  there 
be  a  reunion  appointed  for  us,  surely  it  is  either  in 
Heaven  or  in  Flatz;  and  I  hope  in  God,  the  latter." 
With  these  words,  we  whirled  stoutly  away.  I  looked 
round  through  the  back-window  of  the  coach  at  my  good 
little  village  of  Neusattel,  and  it  seemed  to  me,  in  my 
melting  mood,  as  if  its  steeples  were  rising  aloft  like  an 
epitaphium  over  my  life,  or  over  my  body,  perhaps  to 
return  a  lifeless  corpse.  "  How  will  it  all  be,"  thought  I, 
"when  thou  at  last,  after  two  or  three  days,  comest 
back?"  And  now  I  noticed  my  Bergelchen  looking 
after  us  from  the  garret-window.  I  leaned  far  out  from 
the  coach-door,  and  her  falcon  eye  instantly  distinguished 
my  head ;  kiss  on  kiss  she  threw  with  both  hands  after 
the  carriage,  as  it  rolled  down  into  the  valley.  "  Thou 
true-hearted  wife,"  thought  I,  "  how  is  thy  lowly  birth, 
by  thy  spiritual  new-birth,  made  forgetable,  nay,  remark- 
able ! " 

I  must  confess,  the  assemblage  and  conversational  pic- 
nic of  the  stage-coach  was  much  less  to  my  taste ;  the 
whole  of  them  suspicious,  unknown  rabble,  whom  (as 
markets  usually  do)  the  Flatz  cattle-market  was  alluring 
by  its  scent.     I  dislike  becoming  acquainted  with  stran- 

1.  The  more  "Weakness  the  more  Lying.     Force  goes  straight;  any 
cannon-ball  with  holes  or  cavities  in  it  goes  crooked. 
12 


266      SCIIMKLZLE'S    JOURNEY    TO    FLAETZ. 

gers  ;  not  so  my  brother-in-law,  the  Dra<zoon ;  who  now, 
as  he  always  does,  had  in  a  Tew  minutes  elbowed  himself 
into  close  quarters  with  the  whole  ragamuffin  posse  of 
them.  Beside  me  sat  a  person,  who,  in  all  human  proba- 
bility, was  a  Harlot ;  on  her  breast  a  Dwarf  intending  to 
exhibit  himself  at  the  Fair ;  on  the  other  side  was  a  Rat- 
catcher gazing  at  me  ;  and  a  Blind  Passenger,"*"  in  a  red 
mantle,  had  joined  us  down  in  the  valley.  No  one  of 
them,  except  my  brother-in-law.  pleased  me.  That  ras- 
cals among  these  people  wouhl  not  study  me  and  my 
properties  and  accidents,  to  entangle  me  in  their  snares, 
no  man  could  be  my  surety.  In  strange  places,  I  even, 
out  of  prudence,  avoid  looking  long  up  at  any  jail-win- 
dow ;  because  some  losel,  sitting  behind  the  bars,  may  in 
a  moment  call  down  out  of  mere  malice  :  "  How  goes  it, 
comrade  Schmelzle  ? "  or,  further,  because  any  lurking 
catchpole  may  fancy  I  am  planning  a  rescue  for  some 
confederate  above.  From  another  sort  of  prudence,  little 
different  from  this,  I  also  make  a  point  of  never  turning 
round  when  any  booby  calls,  Thief !  after  me. 

As  to  the  Dwarf  himself,  I  had  no  objection  to  his 
travelling  with  me  whithei-soever  he  pleased ;  but  he 
thought  to  raise  a  particular  delectation  in  our  minds,  by 
promising  that  his  Pollux  and  Brother  in  Trade,  an  ex- 
traordinary Giant  who  was  also  making  for  the  Fair  to 
exhibit  himself,  would  by  midnight,  with  his  elephantine 
pace,  infallibly  overtake  the  coach,  and  plant  himself 
among  us,  or  behind  on  the  outside.     Both  these  noo- 

8S,  Epictetus  advises  us  to  travel,  because  our  old  acquaintances,  by 
the  influence  of  shame,  impede  our  transition  to  higlier  virtues;  as  a 
bashful  man  will  rather  lay  aside  his  provincial  accent  in  some  foreign 

*  Passenger  so  placed  in  the  huge  German  Postwageu,  that  he  car. 
not  look  out  —  Ed. 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ.   267 

dies,  it  appeared,  are  in  the  habit  of  going  in  compa- 
ny to  fairs,  as  reciprocal  exaggerators  of  opposite  mag- 
nitudes ;  the  Dwarf  is  the  convex  magnifying-glass  of 
the  Giant,  the  Giant  the  concave  diminishing-glass  of  the 
Dwarf.  Nobody  expressed  much  joy  at  the  prospective 
arrival  of  this  Anti-dwarf,  except  my  brother-in-law,  who 
(if  I  may  venture  on  a  play  of  words)  seems  made,  like 
a  clock,  solely  for  the  purpose  of  striking,  and  once  actu- 
ally said  to  me,  that  "  if  in  the  Upper  world  he  could  not 
get  a  soul  to  curry  and  towzle  by  a  time,  he  would 
rather  go  to  the  Under,  where  most  probably  there 
would  be  plenty  of  cuffing  and  to  spare."  The  Rat- 
catcher—  besides  the  circumstance  that  no  man  can  pre- 
possess us  much  in  his  favor,  who  lives  solely  by  poison- 
ing, like  this  Destroying  Angel  of  rats,  this  mouse- 
Atropos ;  and  also,  which  is  still  worse,  that  such  a 
fellow  bids  fair  to  become  an  increaser  of  the  vermin 
kingdom  the  moment  he  may  cease  to  be  a  lessener  of 
it  —  besides  all  this,  I  say,  the  present  Rat-catcher  had 
many  baneful  features  about  him.  First,  his  stabbing 
look,  piercing  you  like  a  stiletto;  then  the  lean,  sharp, 
bony  visage,  conjoined  with  his  enumeration  of  his  con- 
siderable stock  of  poisons ;  then  (for  I  hated  him  more" 
and  more)  his  sly  stillness,  his  sly  smile,  as  if  in  some 
corner  he  noticed  a  mouse,  as  he  would  notice  a  man ! 
To  me,  I  declare,  though  usually  I  take  not  the  slightest 
exception  against  people's  looks,  it  seemed  at  last  as  if 
his  throat  were  a  Dog-grotto,  a  Grotta  del  cane,  his  cheek- 
bones cliffs  and  breakers,  his  hot  breath  the  wind  of  a 

quarter,  and  then  return  AvhoUy  purified  to  his  own  countrymen.  In 
our  days,  people  of  rank  and  virtue  follow  this  advice,  but  inversely; 
and  travel  because  their  old  acquaintances,  by  the  influence  of  shame, 
wQuld  too  much  deter  them  from  new  sins. 


268      SCiniKLZLE'S    JOURNEY    TO    FLAETZ. 

t';iU'iMin<jj  iuniace,  and  his  black,  hairy  breast,  a  kihi  for 
pari'liing  and  roasting. 

Nor  was  I  far  wrong,  I  believe  ;  for  soon  after  this,  he 
began  quite  coolly  to  inform  the  company,  in  which  were 
II  dwarf  and  a  female,  that,  in  his  time,  he  had,  not  with- 
out enjoyment,  run  ten  men  through  the  body ;  had  with 
great  convenience  hewed  off  a  dozen  men's  arms;  slowly 
split  four  heads,  torn  out  two  hearts,  and  more  of  the 
like  sort ;  while  none  of  them,  otherwise  persons  of  spirit, 
had  in  the  least  resisted.  "  But  why  ?  "  added  he  with  a 
poisonous  t^mile,  and  taking  the  hat  from  his  odious  bald- 
pate  ;  '•  I  am  invulnerable.  Let  any  one  of  the  company 
that  chooses  lay  as  much  lire  on  my  bare  crown  as  he 
likes,  I  sliall  not  mind  it." 

IMy  brother-in-law,  the  Dragoon,  directly  kindled  his 
tinder-box^  and  put  a  heap  of  the  burning  matter  on  the 
Rat-catcher's  pole ;  but  the  fellow  stood  it,  as  if  it  had 
been  a  mere  picture  of  fire,  and  the  two  looked  expect- 
ingly  at  one  another ;  and  the  former  smiled  very  fool- 
ishly, saying :  "  It  was  simply  pleasant  to  him,  like  a 
good  warming-plaster;  for  this  was  always  the  wintry 
region  of  his  body." 

Here  the  Dragoon  groped  a  little  on  the  naked  scull, 
and  cried  with  amazement,  that  "it  was  as  cold  as  a 
knee-pan." 

But  now  the  fellow,  to  our  horror,  after  some  prepara- 
tions, actually  lifted  off  the  quarter-skull  and  held  it  out 
to  us,  saying:  ''  He  had  sawed  it  off  a  murderer,  his  own 
having  accidentally  been  broken  " ;  and  withal  explained, 

32.  Our  Age  (by  some  called  the  Paper  Age,  as  if  it  were  made 
frotn  the  rags  of  some  better  dressed  one)  is  improving  in  so  far  as  it 
now  tears,  its  rags  rather  into  Bandages  than  into  Papers;  although, 
or  because,  the  Rag-hacker  (the  Devil  as  they  call  it)  will  not  alto- 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ.   269 

that  the  stabbing  and  arm-cutting  he  had  talked  of  was 
to  be  understood  as  a  jest,  seeing  he  had  merely  done  it 
in  the  character  of  Famulus  at  an  Anatomical  Theatre. 
However,  the  jester  seemed  to  rise  little  in  favor  with 
any  of  us  ;  and  for  my  part,  as  he  put  his  brain-lid  and 
sham-skull  on  again,  I  thought  to  myself:  "This  dung- 
bed-bell  has  changed  its  place,  indeed,  but  not  the  hem- 
lock it  was  made  to  cover." 

Further,  I  could  not  but  reckon  it  a  suspicious  circum- 
stance, that  he  as  well  as  all  the  company  (the  Blind 
Passenger  too)  were  making  for  this  very  Flatz,  to  which 
I  myself  was  bound.  Much  good  I  could  not  expect  of 
this ;  and,  in  truth,  turning  home  again  would  have  been 
as  pleasant  to  me  as  going  on,  had  I  not  rather  felt  a 
pleasure  in  defying  the  future. 

I  come  now  to  the  red-mantled  Blind  Passenger ;  most 
probably  an  Emigre  or  Refugie  ;  for  he  speaks  German 
not  worse  than  he  does  French ;  and  his  name,  I  think, 
was  Jean  Pierre  or  Jean  Paul,  or  some  such  thing,  if 
indeed  he  had  any  name.  His  red  cloak,  notwithstand- 
ing this  his  identity  of  color  with  the  Hangman,  would  in 
itself  have  remained  heartily  indifferent  to  me ;  had  it 
not  been  for  this  singular  circumstance,  that  he  had 
already  five  times,  contrary  to  all  expectation,  come 
upon  me  in  five  different  towns  (in  great  Berlin,  in  little 
Hof,  in  Coburg,  Meiningen,  and  Bayreuth),  and,  each  of 
these  times,  had  looked  at  me  significantly  enough,  and 
then  gone  his  ways.  Whether  this  Jean  Pierre  is  dogging 
me  with  hostile  intent  or  not,  I  cannot  say ;  but  to  our 

gether  be  at  rest.  ]\Iean while,  if  Learned  Heads  transform  themselves 
into  Books,  Crowned  Heads  transform  and  coin  themselves  into  Gov- 
ernment-paper. In  Norway,  according  to  the  Universal  Indicator,  the 
people  have  even  paper-bouses;  and  in  many  good  German  States, 


270   SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ. 

fancy,  at  any  rate,  no  object  can  be  gratifying  that  thus, 
with  corps  of  observation,  or  out  of  loop-holes,  holds  and 
aims  at  us  with  muskets,  which  for  year  after  year  it 
shall  move  to  this  side  and  that,  without  our  knowing  on 
whom  it  is  to  fire.  Still  more  offensive  did  Redcloak 
become  to  me,  when  he  began  to  talk  about  his  soft  mild- 
ness of  soul ;  a  thing  which  seemed  either  to  betoken 
pumping  you  or  undermining  you. 

I  replied  :  "  Sir,  I  am  just  come,  with  my  brother-in- 
law  here,  from  the  field  of  battle  (the  last  affair  was  at 
Pimpelstadt),  and  so  perhaps  am  too  much  of  a  humor 
for  fire,  pluck,  and  war-fury ;  and  to  many  a  one,  who 
happens  to  have  a  roaring  waterspout  of  a  heart,  it  may 
be  well  if  his  clerical  character  (which  is  mine)  rather 
enjoins  on  him  mildness  than  wildness.  However,  all 
mildness  has  its  iron  limit.  If  any  thoughtless  dog 
chance  to  anger  me,  in  the  first  heat  of  rage  I  kick  my 
foot  tlirough  him  ;  and  after  me,  my  good  brother  here 
will  perhaps  drive  matters  twice  as  far,  for  he  is  the  man 
to  do  it.  Perhaps  it  may  be  singular ;  but  I  confess,  I 
regret  to  tliis  day,  that  once  when  a  boy  I  received  three 
blows  from  another,  without  tightly  returning  them  ;  and 
I  often  feel  as  if  I  must  still  pay  them  to  his  descendants. 
In  sooth,  if  I  but  chance  to  see  a  child  running  off  like  a 
dastard  from  the  weak  attack  of  a  child  like  himself,  I 
cannot  for  my  life  understand  his  running,  and  can 
scarcely  keep  from  interfering  to  save  him  by  a  decisive 
knock." 

The  Passenger  meanwhile  was  smiling,  not  in  the  best 

the  Exchequer  Collegium  (to  say  nothing  of  the  Justice  Collegium) 
keeps  its  own  paper-mills,  to  furnish  wrappage  enough  for  the  meal 
of  its  wind-mills.  I  could  wish,  however,  that  our  Collegiums  would 
take  pattern  from  that  Glass  Manufactory  at  Madrid,  in  which  (ac- 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ.   271 

fashion.  He  gave  himself  out  for  a  Legations-Rath,  and 
seemed  fox  enough  for  such  a  post ;  but  a  mad  fox  will,  in 
the  long  run,  bite  me  as  rabidly  as  a  mad  wolf  will.  For 
the  rest,  I  calmly  went  on  with  my  eulogy  on  courage  ; 
only  that,  instead  of  ludicrous  gasconading,  which  directly 
betrays  the  coward,  I  purposely  expressed  myself  in 
words  at  once  cool,  clear,  and  firm. 

"  I  am  altogether  for  Montaigne's  advice,"  said  I : 
"  '  Fear  nothing  but  fear.'  " 

"I  again,"  replied  the  Legations-man,  with  useless 
wire-drawing,  "  I  should  fear  again  that  I  did  not  suffi- 
ciently fear  fear,  but  continued  too  dastardly." 

"  To  this  fear  also,"  replied  I,  coldly,  "  I  set  limits.  A 
man,  for  instance,  may  not  in  the  least  believe  in  or  be 
afraid  of  ghosts  ;  and  yet  by  night  may  bathe  himself  in 
cold  sweat,  and  this  purely  out  of  terror  at  the  dreadful 
fright  he  should  be  in  (especially  with  what  whiffs  of 
epilepsies,  falling-sicknesses,  and  so  forth,  he  might  be 
visited),  in  case  simply  his  own  too  vivid  fancy  should 
create  any  wild  fever-image,  and  hang  it  up  in  the  air 
before  him." 

"  One  should  not,  therefore,"  added  my  brother-in-law 
the  Dragoon,  contrary  to  his  custom,  moralizing  a  little,  — 
"  one  should  not  bamboozle  the  poor  sheep,  man,  with  any 
ghost-tricks  ;  the  henheart  may  die  on  the  spot." 

A  loud  storm  of  thunder  overtaking  the  stage-coach 
altered  the  discourse.  You,  my  Friends,  knowing  me  as 
a  man  not  quite  destitute  of  some  tincture  of  Natural  Phi- 
losophy, will  easily  guess  my  precautions  against  thunder. 

cording  to  Baumgartner)  there  were  indeed  nineteen  clerks  stationed, 
but  also  eleven  workmen. 

2.  In  his  Prince,  a  soldier  reverences  and  obeys  at  once  his  Prince 
and  his  Generalissimo;  a  Citizen,  only  his  Prince. 


2-2   SCHMELZLE'S  JOUKXEY  TO  FLAETZ. 

T  place  myself  on  a  chair  in  the  middle  of  the  room 
(often,  when  snspicions  clouds  are  out.  I  stay  whole  nights 
on  it),  and  by  careful  removal  of  all  conductors,  rin:::?, 
buckles,  and  so  forth,  I  here  sit  thunder-proof,  and  listen 
with  a  cool  spirit  to  this  elemental  music  of  the  cloud- 
kettledrum.  These  precautions  have  never  harmed  me. 
for  I  am  still  alive  at  this  date:  and  to  the  present  hour 
I  congratulate  myself  on  once  hurrying  out  of  church, 
though  1  had  confessed  but  the  day  previous  :  and  run- 
ning, without  more  ceremony,  and  before  I  had  received 
the  sacrament,  into  the  charnel-house,  because  a  heavy 
thnnder-doud  (which  did,  in  fact,  strike  the  churchyard 
linden-tree)  was  hoyering  over  it.  So  soon  as  the  cloud 
had  disloaded  itself.  I  returned  from  the  charnel-house 
into  the  church,  and  was  happy  enough  to  come  in  after 
the  Hangman  (usually  the  last),  and  so  still  participate  in 
the  Feast  of  Love. 

Such,  for  my  own  part,  is  my  manner  of  proceeding  ; 
but  in  the  full  stage-coach  I  met  with  men  to  whom  Nat- 
ural Philosophy  was  no  philosophy  at  all.  For  when  the 
clouds  gathered  dreadfully  together  over  our  coach-can- 
opy, and  sparkling,  began  to  play  through  the  air,  like  so 
many  tireflies.  and  I  at  last  could  not  but  request  that  the 
sweating  coach-conclave  would  at  least  bring  out  their 
watches,  rings,  money,  and  such  like,  and  put  them  all 
into  one  oi"  the  carriage-pockets,  that  none  of  us  might 
have  a  conductor  on  his  body  :  not  only  would  no  one  of 
them  do  it.  but  my  own  brother-in-law  the  Dragoon  even 
sprang  out.  with  naked  drawn  sword,  to  the  coach-box, 
aiui  swore  that  he  would  conduct  the  thunder  all  away 

-43.  Our  present  writers  shrug  their  shoulders  most  .it  those  on 
whose  shoulders  they  stand;  .and  exalt  those  most  who  crawl  up 
along  tliem. 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ.   273 

himself.  Nor  do  I  know  whether  this  desperate  mortal 
was  not  acting  prudently  ;  for  our  position  within  was 
frightful,  and  any  one  of  us  might  every  moment  be  a 
dead  man.  At  last,  to  crown  all,  I  got  into  a  half  alter* 
cation  with  two  of  the  rude  members  of  our  leathern 
household,  the  Poisoner  and  the  Harlot ;  seeing,  by  their 
questions,  they  almost  gave  me  to  understand,  that,  in  our 
conversational  picnic,  especially  with  the  Blind  Passen- 
ger, I  had  not  always  come  off  with  the  best  share.  Such 
an  imputation  wounds  your  honor  to  the  quick ;  and  in 
toy  breast  there  was  a  thunder  louder  than  that  above  us. 
However,  I  was  obliged  to  carry  on  the  needful  exchange 
of  sharp  words  as  quietly  and  slowly  as  possible  ;  and  I 
quarrelled  softly,  and  in  a  low  tone,  lest  in  the  end  a 
whole  coachful  of  people,  set  in  arms  against  each  other, 
might  get  into  heat  and  perspiration  ;  and  so,  by  vapor 
steaminof  throu2fh  the  coach-roof,  conduct  the  too  near 
thunderbolt  down  into  the  midst  of  us.  At  last  I  laid  be- 
fore the  company  the  whole  theory  of  Electricity  in  clear 
words,  but  low  and  slow  (striving  to  avoid  all  emission  of 
vapor)  ;  and  especially  endeavored  to  frighten  them  away, 
from  fear.  For,  indeed,  through  fear,  the  stroke  —  nay, 
two  strokes,  the  electric  or  the  apoplectic  —  might  hit  any 
one  of  us ;  since  in  Erxleben  and  Reimarus  it  is  suffi- 
ciently proved  that  violent  fear,  by  the  transpiration  it 
causes,  may  attract  the  liglitning.  I  accordingly,  in  some 
fear  of  my  own  and  other  people's  fear,  represented  to  the 
passengers  that  now,  in  a  coach  so  hot  and  crowded,  with 
a  drawn  sword  on  the  coach-box  piercing  the  very  light- 
ning, with  the  thunder-cloud  hanging  over  us,  and  even 

103.  The  Great  perhaps  take  as  good  charge  of  their  posterity  as 
the  Ants;  the  eggs  once  laid,  the  male  and  female  Ants  fly  about  their 
business,  and  confide  them  to  the  trusty  imrl-ing-Anh. 

12*  R 


274  SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ. 

with  so  many  transpirations  from  incipient  fear  ;  in  short, 
with  such  visible  danger  on  every  hand,  they  must  abso- 
hitely  fear  nothing,  if  they  would  not,  all  and  sundry,  be 
smitten  to  death  in  a  few  minutes. 

"  O  Heaven  ! "  cried  I,  "  Courage  !  only  courage  !  No 
fear,  not  even  fear  of  fear  !  Would  you  have  Providence 
to  shoot  you  here  sitting,  like  so  many  hares  hunted  into 
a  pinfold  ?  Fear,  if  you  like,  when  you  are  out  of  the 
coach  ;  fear  to  your  heart's  content  in  other  places,  where 
there  is  less  to  be  afraid  of ;  only  not  here,  not  here  ! " 

I  shall  not  determine  —  since  among  millions  scarcely 
one  man  dies  by  thunder-clouds,  but  millions  perhaps  by 
snow-clouds,  and  rain-clouds,  and  thin  mist — whether 
my  Coach-sermon  could  have  made  any  claim  to  a  prize 
for  man-saving  ;  however,  at  last,  all  uninjured,  and  driv- 
ing towards  a  rainbow,  we  entered  the  town  of  Vierstad- 
ten,  where  dwelt  a  Postmaster,  in  the  only  street  which 
the  place  had. 

Second  Stage  ;  from  Vierstddten  to  Niederschona, 

The  Postmaster  was  a  churl  and  a  striker ;  a  class  of 
mortals  whom  I  inexpressibly  detest,  as  my  fancy  always 
wliispors  to  me,  in  their  presence,  that  by  accident  or  dis- 
like I  might  happen  to  put  on  a  scornful  or  impertinent 
look,  and  hound  these  mastiffs  on  my  own  throat ;  and  so, 
from  the  very  first,  I  must  incessantly  watch  them.  Hap- 
pily, in  this  case   (supposing  I  even  had  made  a  wrong 

10.  And  does  Life  offer  ns,  in  regard  to  our  ideal  hopes  and  pur- 
poses, anything  but  a  prosaic,  unrhymed,  unmetrical  Translation? 

78.  Our  German  frame  of  Government,  cased  in  its  harness,  had 
much  difficulty  in  moving,  for  the  same  reason  why  Beetles  cannot 
fly,  when  their  wing&  have  wing-sheUs,  of  very  sufficient  strength,  and 
—  grown  together. 


SCHMELZLE'S    JOURNEY    TO    FLAETZ.      275 

face),  I  could  have  shielded  myself  with  the  Draf^oon  ; 
for  whose  giant  force  such  matters  are  a  tidbit.  This 
brother-in-law  of  mine,  for  example,  cannot  pass  any 
tavern  where  he  hears  a  sound  of  battle,  without  enter- 
ing, and,  as  he  crosses  the  threshold,  shouting,  "  Peace, 
dogs !  "  —  and  therewith,  under  show  of  a  peace  depu- 
tation, he  directly  snatches  up  the  first  chair-leg  in  his 
hand,  as  if  it  were  an  American  peace-calumet,  and  cuts 
to  the  right  and  left  among  the  belligerent  powers,  or  he 
gnashes  the  hard  heads  of  the  parties  together  (he  him- 
self takes  no  side),  catching  each  by  the  hind-lock.  In 
such  cases  the  rogue  is  in  Heaven  ! 

I,  for  my  part,  rather  avoid  discrepant  circles  than  seek 
them  ;  as  I  likewise  avoid  all  dead  or  killed  people.  The 
prudent  man  easily  foresees  what  is  to  be  got  by  them ; 
either  vexatious  and  injurious  witnessing,  or  often  even 
(when  circumstances  conspire)  painful  investigation,  and 
suspicions  of  your  being  an  accomplice. 

Li  Vierstadten  nothing  of  importance  presented  itself, 
except  —  to  my  horror  —  a  dog  without  tail,  which  came 
running  along  the  town  or  street.  In  the  first  fire  of  pas- 
sion at  this  sight,  I  pointed  it  out  to  the  passengers,  and 
then  put  the  question,  whether  they  could  reckon  a  sys- 
tem of  Medical  Police  well  arranged,  which,  like  this  of 
Vierstadten,  allowed  dogs  openly  to  scour  about,  when  their 
tails  were  wanting.  "  What  am  I  to  do,"  said  I,  "  when 
this  member  is  cut  away,  and  any  such  beast  comes  run- 
ning towards  me,  and  I  cannot,  either  by  the  tail  being 
cocked  up  or  being  drawn  in,  since  the  whole  is  snipt  off", 

8.  Constitutions  of  Government  are  like  highways;  on  a  new  and 
quite  untrodden  one,  where  every  carriage  helps  in  the  process  of 
bruising  and  smoothing,  you  are  as  much  jolted  and  pitched,  as  an  old 
worn-out  one,  full  of  holes.     What  is  to  be  done  then?     Travel  on. 


i:6      SCHMKLZLES  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ. 

come  to  any  conclusion  -vvhetlior  the  vermin  is  mad  or  not  ? 
In  tliis  "vvay,  the  most  prudent  man  may  be  bit.  and  be- 
come rabid,  and  so  make  shipwreck  purely  tor  want  of  a 
ti\il  compass." 

The  Blind  Passenger  (he  now  got  himself  inscribed  as 
a  Seeing  one.  God  knows  for  what  objects)  had  heard  my 
observation ;  which  he  now  spun  out  in  my  presence  al- 
most into  ridicule,  and  at  last  awakened  in  me  the  suspi- 
cion, that,  by  an  overdone  tlattery  in  imitating  my  ftA'le 
of  speech,  he  meant  to  banter  me.  '•  The  Dog-tail,"  said 
he,  •'  is.  in  truth,  an  alarm-beacon,  and  tinger-post  for  us, 
that  we  come  not  even  into  the  outmost  precincts  of  mad- 
ness ;  cut  away  from  Comets  their  tails,  from  Bashaws 
theirs,  from  Crabs  thcii-s  (outsti'etched  it  denotes  that  they 
are  bui*st)  ;  and  in  the  most  dangerous  predicaments  of  life, 
we  ai-e  let>  without  clew,  without  intlicator,  without  hand 
in  margine ;  and  we  perish  not  so  much  as  knowing  how." 

For  the  rest,  this  stage  passed  over  without  quarreling 
or  peril.  About  ten  o'clock,  the  whole  party,  including 
even  the  Postilion,  myself  excepted,  fell  asleep.  I  indeed 
pi^^tended  to  be  sleeping,  that  I  might  observe  whether 
some  one.  for  his  own  good  reasons,  might  not  also  be 
pretending  it.  But  all  continued  snoring:  the  moon  threw 
its  brightening  beams  on  nothing  but  downpressed  eyelids. 

I  had  now  a  glorious  opportunity  (){ tollowing  Lavater's 
counsel,  to  apply  the  physiognomical  elluand  specially  to 
sleerers,  ?ince  sleep,  like  death,  expresses  the  genuine 
*l-rm  in  coai^er  lines.  Other  sleepei-s  not  in  stage-coaches 
I  think  it  less  advisable  to  mete  Avith  this  ellwand  ;  hav- 
ing always  an  apprehension  lest  some  fellow,  but  pretend- 
ing to  be  asleep,  may,  the  instant  I  am  near  enough,  stait 

S.  In  Criminal  Courts,  murdered  childi-en  are  often  repre>ented  as 
iftill-boni :  in  Anticritiqvie*,  still-born  a5  murdered. 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ.   277 

up  as  in  a  dream,  and  deceitfully  plant  such  a  knock  on 
the  physiognomical  mensurator's  own  facial  structure,  as  to 
exclude  it  forever  from  appearing  in  any  Physiognomical 
Fragments  (itself  being  reduced  to  one),  either  in  the 
stippled  or  line  style.  Nay.  might  not  the  most  honest 
sleeper  in  the  world,  just  while  you  are  in  hand  with  his 
physiognomical  dissection,  lay  about  him,  spurred  on  by 
honor  in  some  cudgelling-scene  he  may  be  dreaming ;  and 
in  a  few  instants  of  clapperclawing,  and  kicking,  and 
trampling,  lull  you  into  a  much  more  lasting  sleep  than 
that  out  of  which  he  was  awakened  ? 

In  my  Adumbrating  Magic-lantern^  as  I  have  named 
the  Work,  the  whole  physiognomical  contents  of  this  same 
sleeping  stage-coach  will  be  given  to  the  world.  There  I 
shall  explain  to  you  at  large  how  the  Poisoner,  with  the 
murder-cupola,  appeared  to  me  devil-like  ;  the  Dwarf  old- 
child-like  ;  the  Harlot  languidly  shameless ;  my  Brother- 
in-law  peacefully  satisfied,  with  revenge  or  food ;  and  the 
Legations-Rath,  Jean  Pierre,  Heaven  only  knows  why, 
like  a  half  angel,  —  though,  perhaps,  it  might  be  because 
only  the  fair  body,  not  the  other  half,  the  soul,  which  had 
passed  away  in  sleep,  was  affecting  me. 

I  had  almost  forgotten  to  mention,  that,  in  a  little  vil- 
lage, while  my  Brother-in-law  and  the  Postilion  were 
sitting  at  their  liquor,  I  happily  fronted  a  small  terror, 
Destiny  having  twice  been  on  my  side.  Not  far  from  a 
Hunting  Box,  beside  a  pretty  clump  of  trees,  I  noticed  a 
white  tablet,  with  a  black  inscription  on  it.  This  gave 
mc  hopes  that  perhaps  some  little  monumental  piece, 
some  pillar  of  honor,  some  battle  memento,  might  here  be 
awaiting  me.     Over  an  untrodden  flowery  tangle  I  reach 

101.  Not  only  were  the  Rhodians,  from  their  Colossus,  called  Colos- 
sians;  but  also  innumerable  Germans  are,  from  their  Luther,  called 
Lutherans. 


2-8   SCHMELZLE-5  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ. 

the  black  on  white  :  and  to  my  horror  and  amazement  I 
deciplier  in  the  moonshine.  Beirare  of  Spj'incf-pufis  !  Thus 
Tvas  I  standing  perhaps  half  a  nails  breadth  from  the 
trigger,  with  which,  if  I  but  stirred  my  heel,  I  should 
shoot  myself  ofl',  like  a  forgotten  ramrod,  into  the  other 
world,  beyond  the  verge  of  Time  !  The  first  thing  I  did 
was  to  slutch  down  my  toe-nails,  to  bite.  and.  as  it  were, 
eat  myself  into  the  ground  with  them  :  since  I  might,  at 
least,  continue  in  warm  life  so  long  as  I  pegged  my 
lx>dy  firmly  in  beside  the  Atropos-scissors  and  hangman's 
blo:k.  which  lay  beside  me.  Then  I  endeavored  to  rec- 
ollect by  what  steps  the  Fiend  had  led  me  hither  unshot, 
but  in  my  agony  I  had  perspil^?d  the  whole  of  it.  and 
could  ivmeml>er  nothing.  In  the  Devil's  village,  close  at 
hand,  there  was  no  dog  to  be  seen  and  called  to,  who 
might  have  plucked  me  from  the  water  ;  and  my  Brother- 
in-law  and  the  Postilion  were  both  carousing  with  full 
can.  However.  I  sumiuoned  my  courage  and  determina- 
tion :  wrote  down  on  a  leaf  of  my  pocket-book  my  last 
will,  the  accidental  manner  of  my  death,  and  my  dying 
remembrance  of  Berga  :  and  then,  with  full  sails,  flew 
helter-skelter  through  the  midst  of  it  the  shortest  way ; 
expecting  at  every  step  to  awaken  the  murderous  engine, 
and  thus  to  clap  over  my  still  long  candle  of  life  the  boii- 
soi'r.  or  extinguisher,  with  my  own  hand.  However.  I 
got  off  without  shot.  In  the  tavern,  indeed,  there  was 
more  than  one  fool  to  laugh  at  me ;  because,  forsooth, 

88-  Hitherto  I  have  always  regarded  the  Polemical  writings  of  our 
present  philosophic  and  aesthetic  Idealist  Logic-buffers,  —  in  which, 
certainly,  a  few  contumelies,  and  misconceptions,  and  misconclusions 
do  make  their  appearance,  —  rather  on  the  fair  side ;  observing  in  it 
merely  an  imitation  of  classical  Antiquity,  in  particular  of  the  ancient 
Athletes,  who  (according  to  Schottgen)  besmeared  their  bodies  with 
buk/,  that  they  might  not  be  laid  hold  of:  and  filled  their  hands  with 
that  tfaej  might  lay  hold  of  their  antagonists. 


SCHMELZLE'S    JOURNEY    TO    FLAETZ.      279 

what  none  but  a  fool  could  know,  this  Notice  had  stood 
there  for  the  last  ten  years  without  any  gun,  as  guns  often 
do  without  any  notice.  But  so  it  is,  my  Friends,  with 
our  game-police,  which  warns  against  all  things,  only  not 
asrainst  warnino-s. 

For  the  rest,  throughout  the  whole  stage,  I  had  a  con- 
stant source  of  altercation  with  the  coachman,  because  he 
grudged  stopping  perhaps  once  in  the  quarter  of  an  hour, 
Avhen  I  chose  to  come  out  for  a  natural  purpose.  Unhap- 
pily, in  truth,  one  has  little  reason  to  expect  water-doctors 
among  the  postilion  class,  since  Physicians  themselves 
have  so  seldom  learned  from  Haller  s  large  Physiology 
that  a  postponement  of  the  above  operation  will  precipi- 
tate devilish  stone-ware,  and  at  last  precipitate  the  pro- 
prietor himself;  this  stone-manufactory  being  generally 
concluded,  not  by  the  Lithotomist,  but  by  Death.  Had 
postilions  read  that  Tycho  Brahe  died  like  a  bombshell 
by  bursting,  they  would  rather  pull  up  for  a  moment ; 
with  such  unlooked-for  knowledge,  they  would  see  it  to  be 
'reasonable  that  a  man,  though  expecting  some  time  to 
carry  his  death-stone  on  him,  should  not  incline,  for  the 
time  being,  to  carry  it  in  him.  Nay,  have  I  not  often,  at 
Weimar,  in  the  longest  concluding  scenes  of  Schiller,  run 
out  with  tears  in  my  eyes  ;  purely  that,  w^hile  liis  Minerva 
was  melting  me  on  the  whole,  I  might  not  by  the  Gor- 
gon's head  on  her  breast  be  partially  turned  to  stone  ? 
And  did  I  not  return  to  the  weeping  play-house,  and  fall 
into  the  general  emotion  so  much  the  more  briskly,  as 
now  I  had  nothing  to  give  vent  to  but  my  heart  ? 

Deep  in  the  dark  we  arrived  at  Niederschona. 

103.  Or  are  all  Mosques,  Episcopal-churches,  Pagodas,  Chapels-of- 
Ease,  Tabernacles,  and  Pantheons,  anything  else  than  the  Ethnic 
Forecourt  of  the  Invisible  Temple  and  its  Holy  of  Holies? 


28o   SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ. 

Third  Stage  ;  from  Niederscliona  to  Fldlz. 

While  I  am  standing  at  the  Posthouse  musing,  with 
my  eye  fixed  on  my  portmanteau,  comes  a  beast  of  a 
watchman,  and  bellows  and  brays  in  his  night-tube  so 
close  by  my  ear  that  I  start  back  in  trepidation,  I  whom 
even  a  too  hasty  accosting  will  vex.  Is  there  no  medical 
police,  then,  against  such  efflated  hour-fulminators  and 
alarm-cannon,  by  which  notwithstanding  no  gunpowTler 
cannon  are  saved  ?  In  my  opinion  nobody  should  be  in- 
vested with  the  watchman-horn  but  some  reasonable  man, 
who  had  already  blown  himself  into  an  asthma,  and  who 
would  consequently  be  in  case  to  sing  out  his  hour-verse 
so  low  that  you  could  not  hear  it. 

What  I  had  long  expected,  and  the  Dwarf  predicted, 
now  took  place  ;  deeply  stooping,  through  the  high  Post- 
house  door,  issued  the  Giant,  and  raised  in  the  open  air  a 
most  unreasonably  high  figure,  heightened  by  the  ell-long 
bonnet  and  feather  on  his  huge  jobbernowl.  My  Brother- 
in-law,  beside  him,  looked  but  like  his  son  of  fourteen 
years ;  the  Dwarf  like  his  lap-dog  waiting  for  him  on 
its  two  hind  legs.  "  Good  friend,"  said  my  bantering 
Brother-in-law%  leading  him  towards  me  and  the  stage- 
coach, "just  step  softly  in,  we  shall  all  be  happy  to  make 
room  for  you.  Fold  yourself  neatly  together,  lay  your 
head  on  your  knee,  and  it  will  do."  The  unseasonable 
banterer  would  willingly  have  seen  the  almost  stupid 
Giant  (of  whom  he  had  soon  observed  that  his  brain  was 

40.  The  common  man  is  copious  only  in  narration,  not  in  reasoning; 
the  cultivated  man  is  brief  only  in  the  former,  not  in  the  latter  ; 
because  the  common  man's  reasons  are  a  sort  of  sensations,  which, 
as  well  as  things  visible,  he  merely  looks  at ;  by  the  cultivated 
man,  again,  both  reasons  and  things  visible  are  rather  thouc/ht  than 
looked  at. 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ.   281 

no  active  substance,  but  in  the  inverse  ratio  of  his  trunk) 
squeezed  in  among  us  in  the  post-chest,  and  lying  kneaded 
together  like  a  sand-bag  before  him.  "  Won't  do  !  Won't 
do ! "  said  the  Giant,  looking  in.  "  The  gentleman  per- 
haps does  not  know,"  said  the  Dwarf,  "  how  big  the  Giant 
is ;  and  so  he  thinks  that  because  /go  in  —  But  that 
is  another  story ;  /  will  creep  into  any  hole,  do  but  tell 
me  where." 

In  short,  there  was  no  resource  for  the  Postmaster  and 
the  Gia,nt,  but  that  the  latter  should  plant  himself  behind, 
in  the  character  of  luggage,  and  there  lie  bending  down 
like  a  weeping  willow  over  the  whole  vehicle.  To  me 
such  a  back-wall  and  rear-guard  could  not  be  particularly 
gratifying ;  and  I  may  refer  it  (I  hope)  to  any  one  of 
you,  ye  Friends,  if  with  such  ware  at  your  back  you 
would  not,  as  clearly  and  earnestly  as  I,  have  considered 
what  manifold  murderous  projects  a  knave  of  a  Giant 
behind  you,  2i  pursuer  in  all  senses,  might  not  maliciously 
attempt ;  say,  that  he  broke  in  and  assailed  you  by  the 
back-window,  or  with  Titanian  strength  laid  hold  of  the 
coach-roof  and  demolished  the  whole  party  in  a  lump. 
However,  this  Elephant  (who  indeed  seemed  to  owe  the 
similarity  more  to  his  overpowering  mass  than  to  his 
quick  light  of  inward  faculty),  crossing  his  arms  over  the 
top  of  the  vehicle,  soon  began  to  sleep  and  snore  above 
us ;  an  Elephant,  of  whom,  as  I  more  and  more  joyfully 
observed,  my  Brother-in-law,  the  Dragoon,  could  easily 
be  the  tamer  and  bridle-holder,  nay,  had  already  been  so. 

As  more  than  one  person  now  felt  inclined  to  sleep,  but 

9.  In  any  national  calamity  the  ancient  Egyptians  took  revenge  oa 
the  god  Typhon,  whom  they  blamed  for  it,  by  hurling  his  favorites, 
the  Asses,  down  over  rocks.  In  similar  wise  have  countries  of  a 
different  religion  now  and  then  taken  their  revenge. 


2S2   SCHMELZLE-S  JOUKXEY  TO  FLAETZ. 

I.  on  the  contrary,  as  was  proper,  to  wake.  I  freelv  offei-ed 
niT  seat  of  honor,  the  front  place  in  the  coach  (meaning 
therebv  to  abolish  many  little  flaws  of  envA*  in  my  fellow- 
passengers),  to  such  pei^ons  as  wished  to  take  a  nap 
thereon.  The  Legation's  mail  accepted  the  offer  with 
eagerness,  and  soon  fell  asleep  there  sitting,  under  the 
Titan.*  To  me  this  sort  of  coach-sleeping  of  a  diplo- 
matic charge  cTaf  aires  remained  a  thing  incomprehensi- 
ble. A  man.  that  in  the  middle  of  a  stranger  and  often 
barbarously-minded  company  j>ermits  himself  to  slumber, 
may  easily,  suppt^ing  him  to  talk  in  his  sleep  and  coach, 
(think  of  the  Saxon  minister!  before  the  Seven  Tears* 
TTar '.)  blab  out  a  tliousaud  secrets,  and  crimes,  some  of 
which,  perhaps,  he  has  not  committed.  Should  not  every 
minister,  ambassador,  or  other  man  of  honor  and  rank, 
really  shudder  at  the  thought  of  insanity  or  violent  fevers; 
seeing  no  mortal  can  be  his  surety  that  he  shall  not  in 
such  cases  publish  the  greatest  scandals,  of  which,  it  may 
be,  the  half  are  lies  ? 

At  hist,  after  the  long  July  night,  we  passengers,  to- 
gether with  Aurora,  arrived  in  the  precincts  of  Flatz.  I 
looked  with  a  sharp  yet  moistened  eye  at  the  steeples.  I 
believe,  every  man  who  has  anything  decisive  to  seek  in  a 
to\>Tj.  and  to  whom  it  is  either  to  be  a  judgment-seat  of 

70.  Let  Poetry  tcQ  itself  in  Philosophy,  but  only  as  the  latter  does 
in  the  former.  Philosophy  in  poetized  Prose  resembles  those  tavern 
drinking-glasses,  encircled  with  party-colored  \rreaths  of  figures, 
wfaidi  disturb  yonr  enjoyment  both  of  the  drink,  and  (often  awk- 
ifTsurdly  eclipsing  and  covering  each  other)  of  the  carving  also. 

*  TiioM  is  also  the  title  of  this  Legations-Rath  Jeau  Pierre  or  Jean 
Paul  (Friedrich  RichterVs  chief  novel.  —  Ed. 

t  Bruhl,  I  suppose;  but  the  historical  edition  of  the  matter  is,  that 
BruhPs  treasonable  secrets  were  come  at  by  the  more  ordinary  means 
of  wax  impressions  of  his  keys.  —  Ed. 


SCHME^ZLE'S    JOURNEY    TO    FLAETZ.      283 

his  hopes,  or  their  anchoring-station,  either  a  battle-field 
or  a  sugar-field,  first  and  longest  directs  his  eye  on  the 
steeples  of  the  town,  as  upon  the  indexes  and  balance- 
tongues  of  his  future  destiny  ;  these  artificial  peaks, 
which,  like  natural  ones,  are  the  thrones  of  our  Future. 
As  I  happened  to  express  myself  on  this  point  perhaps 
too  poetically  to  Jean  Pierre,  he  answered  with  sufficient 
want  of  taste :  "  The  steeples  of  such  towns  are  indeed 
the  Swiss  Alpine  peaks,  on  which  we  milk  and  manufac- 
ture the  Swiss  cheese  of  our  Future."  Did  the  Lega- 
tions-Peter mean  with  this  style  to  make  me  ridiculous, 
or  only  himself?     Determine  ! 

"  Here  is  the  place,  the  town,"  said  I  in  secret,  "  where 
to-day  much  and  for  many  years  is  to  be  determined, 
where  thou  this  evening,  about  five  o'clock,  art  to  present 
thy  petition  and  thyself  May  it  prosper !  May  it  be 
successful !  Let  Fliitz,  this  arena  of  thy  little  efforts 
among  the  rest,  become  a  building-space  for  fair  castles 
and  air-castles  to  two  hearts,  thy  own  and  thy  Berga's  ! " 

At  the  Tiger  Inn  I  alighted. 

First  Day  in  Flatz. 

No  mortal  in  my  situation  at  this  Tiger-hotel  would 
have  triumphed  much  in  his  more  immediate  prospects. 
I,  as  the  only  man  known  to  me,  especially  in  the  way  of 
love  (of  the  runaway  Dragoon  anon !),  looked  out  from 
the  windows  of  the  overflowing  Inn,  and  down  on  the 
rushing  sea  of  marketers,  and  very  soon  began  to  reflect, 

158.  Governments  should  not  too  often  change  the  penny-trumps  and 
child's  drums  of  the  Poets  for  the  regimental  trumpet  and  fire-drum  ; 
on  the  other  hand,  good  subjects  should  regard  many  a  princely  drum- 
tendency  simply  as  a  disease,  in  which  the  patient,  by  air  insinuating 
under  the  skin,  has  got  dreadfully  swoln. 


2S.J.  SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ. 

that,  except  Heaven  and  the  rascals  and  murderers,  none 
knew  how  many  of  the  latter  two  classes  were  floating 
among  the  tide ;  purposing,  perhaps,  to  lay  hold  of  the 
most  innocent  strangers,  and  in  part  cut  their  purses,  in 
part  their  throats.  My  situation  had  a  special  circum- 
stance against  it.  My  brother-in-law,  wlio  still  comes 
plump  out  with  everything,  had  mentioned  that  I  was  to 
put  up  at  the  Tiger.  O  Heaven !  when  will  such  people 
learn  to  be  secret,  and  to  cover  even  the  meanest  petti- 
nesses of  life  under  mantles  and  veils,  were  it  only  that 
a  silly  mouse  may  as  often  give  birth  to  a  mountain  as  a 
mountain  to  a  mouse !  The  whole  rabble  of  the  stage- 
coach stopped  at  the  Tiger ;  the  Harlot,  the  Rat-catcher, 
Jea)i  Pierre,  the  Giant,  who  had  dismounted  at  the  Gate 
of  the  town,  and  carrying  the  huge  block-head  of  the 
Dwarf  on  his  shoulders  as  his  own  (cloaking  over  the 
deception  by  his  cloak),  had  thus,  like  a  ninny,  exhibited 
himself  gratis  by  half  a  dwarf  more  gigantic  than  he 
could  be  seen  for  money. 

And  now  for  each  of  the  Passengei*s.  t!:e  question  was 
how  he  could  make  the  Tiger,  the  heraldic  emblem  of  the 
Inn,  his  prototype  ;  and  so  what  lamb  he  might  suck  the 
blood  of,  and  tear  in  pieces,  and  devour.  My  brother-in- 
law  too  left  me,  having  gone  in  quest  of  some  hoi^e-detU- 
er ;  but  he  retained  the  chamber  next  mine  for  his  sister ; 
this,  it  appeared,  was  to  denote  attention  on  his  part.     I 

S9.  In  great  towns,  a  stranger,  for  the  first  day  or  two  after  his  ar- 
rival, live?  purely  at  his  own  expense,  in  an  inn;  afterwards,  in  the 
liouses  of  his  friends,  without  expense;  on  the  other  hand,  if  you  ar- 
rive at  the  Earth,  as  for  instance  I  have  done,  you  are  courteously 
maintained,  precisely  for  the  first  few  years,  free  of  charges;  but  in 
the  next  and  longer  series  -=-  for  you  often  stay  sixty  —  you  are  actually 
obliged  (I  have  the  documents  in  my  hands)  to  pay  for  e%'ery  drop  and 
morsel,  as  if  you  were  in  the  great  Earth  Inn,  which  indeed  you  are. 


remained  solitary,  left  to  my  own  intrepidity  and  force  of 
purpose. 

Yet  among  so  many  villains,  encompassing  if  not  even 
beleaguring  me,  I  thought  warmly  of  one  far  distant,  faith- 
ful soul,  of  my  Berga  in  Neusattel ;  a  true  heart  of  pith, 
which  perhaps  with  many  a  weak  marriage-partner  might 
have  given  protection  rather  than  sought  it. 

"  Appear,  then,  quickly  to-morrow  at  noon,  Berga,"  said 
my  heart ;  "  and  if  possible  before  noon,  that  I  may 
lengthen  thy  market  paradise  so  many  hours  as  thou 
arrivest  earlier !  " 

A  clergyman,  amid  the  tempests  of  the  world,  readily 
makes  for  a  free  harbor,  for  the  church ;  the  church- wall 
is  his  casement-wall  and  fortification ;  and  behind  are  to 
be  found  more  peaceful  and  more  accordant  souls  than  on 
the  market-place  ;  in  short,  I  went  into  the  High  Church. 
However,  in  the  course  of  the  psalm,  I  was  somewhat  dis- 
turbed by  a  Heiduc,  who  came  up  to  a  well-dressed  young 
gentleman  sitting  opposite  me,  and  tore  the  double  opera- 
glass  from  his  nose,  it  being  against  rule  in  Fliitz,  as  it  is 
in  Dresden,  to  look  at  the  Court  with  glasses  which  di- 
minish and  approximate.  I  myself  had  on  a  pair  of  spec- 
tacles, but  they  were  magnifiers.  It  was  impossible  for 
me  to  resolve  on  taking  them  off;  and  here  again,  I  am 
afraid,  I  shall  pass  for  a  foolhardy  person  and  a  despera- 
do ;  so  much  only  I  reckoned  fit,  to  look  invariably  into 

107.  Germany  is  a  long  lofty  mountain  — under  the  sea. 

144.  The  Reviewer  does  not  in  reality  employ  his  pen  for  writing; 
but  he  burns  it,  to  awaken  weak  people  from  their  swoons  with  the 
smell ;  he  tickles  with  it  the  throat  of  the  plagiary,  to  make  him  ren- 
der back;  and  he  picks  with  it  his  own  teeth.  He  is  the  only  indi- 
vidual in  the  whole  learned  lexicon  that  can  never  exhaust  himself, 
never  write  himself  out,  let  him  sit  before  the  ink-glass  for  centuries, 
or  tens  of  centuries.     For  while  the  Scholar,  the  Philosopher,  and  the 


2S6   SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ. 

mv  j^;\lm-book  ;  not  once  lifting  my  eye?  while  the  Court 
w;ts  rustling  and  entering,  thereby  to  denote  that  my 
glasses  were  ground  convex.  For  the  rest,  the  sermon 
was  good,  it*  not  always  tinely  conceived  for  a  Court- 
church  ;  it  admonished  the  heai*ei*s  ag;\inst  innumerable 
vices,  to  whose  counterparts,  the  virtues,  another  preacher 
might  so  readih"  have  exhorted  us.  During  the  whole 
service,  I  made  it  my  business  to  exhibit  true,  deep  rever- 
ence, not  only  towards  God.  but  also  towards  my  illustri- 
ous Prince.  For  the  latter  reverence  I  had  my  private 
reason.  I  wished  to  stamp  this  sentiment  strongly  and 
openly  as  with  raised  letters  on  my  countenance,  and  so 
give  the  lie  to  any  malicious  imp  about  Court,  by  whom 
my  contravention  of  the  Pafieffyric  on  ^ero,  and  my  free 
German  satire  on  this  real  tyrant  himself,  which  I  had 
inserted  in  the  Platz  Weekly  Journal^  might  have  been 
perverted  into  a  secret  characteristic  portrait  of  my  own 
Sovereign.  We  live  in  such  times  at  present,  that  scarce- 
ly can  we  compose  a  pasquinade  on  the  Devil  in  Hell, 
but  some  human  Devil  on  Earth  will  apply  it  to  an  angel. 
When  the  Court  at  last  issued  from  church,  and  were 
getting  into  tlieir  carriages.  I  kept  at  such  a  distance  that 
my  face  could  not  possibly  be  noticed,  in  case  I  had  hap- 
pened to  assume  no  reverent  look,  but  an  indifferent  or 
even  preud  one.  God  knows,  who  has  kneaded  into  me 
those  mad,  desperate  tancies  and  crotchets,  which  perhaps 
would  sit  better  on  a  Hero  Schabacker,  than  on  an  Army- 
chaplain  under  him.     I  cannot  here  forbear  recording  to 

Poet  produce  their  new  book  solely  from  new  materials  and  growth, 
the  Reviewer  merely  lays  his  old  iniuire  of  taste  and  knowledare  on  a  thou- 
sand new  works  :  and  his  light,  in  the  eTer-pa^sing,  ever-differently-cut 
glass-world,  which  he  elucidates,  is  still  refracted  into  new  colors. 

71.  The  Youth  is  singular  livm  caprice,  and  takes  pleasure  in  it; 
tkd  Man  is  so  irom  ooustx&iut  oiiiBteudoually,  and  feels  pain  in  it 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ.   287 

you,  my  Friends,  one  of  tlie  maddest  among  them,  though 
at  first  it  may  throw  too  glaring  a  light  on  me.  It  was  at 
my  ordination  to  be  Army-chaplain,  while  about  to  par- 
ticipate in  the  Sacrament,  on  the  first  day  of  Easter. 
Now,  here  while  I  was  standing,  moved  into  softness, 
before  the  balustrade  of  the  altar,  in  the  middle  of  the 
whole  male  congregation,  —  nay,  I  perhaps  more  deeply 
moved  than  any  among  them,  since,  as  a  person  going  to 
war,  I  might  consider  myself  a  half-dead  man,  that  was 
now  partaking  in  the  last  Feast  of  Souls,  as  it  were  like  a 
person  to  be  hanged  on  the  morrow,  —  here,  then,  amid 
the  pathetic  effects  of  the  organ  and  singing,  there  rose 
something  —  wei*e  it  the  first  Easter-day  which  awoke  in 
me  what  primitive  Christians  call  their  Easter-laughter, 
or  merely  the  contrast  between  the  most  devilish  predica- 
ments and  the  most  holy,  —  in  short,  there  rose  some- 
thing in  me  (for  which  reason  I  have  ever  since  taken 
the  part  of  every  simple  person  who  might  ascribe  sucli 
things  to  the  Devil),  and  this  something  started  the 
question  :  "  Now,  could  there  be  aught  more  diabolical 
than  if  thou,  just  in  receiving  the  Holy  Supper,  wert 
madly  and  blasphemously  to  begin  laughing  ?  "  Instantly 
I  took  to  wrestling  with  this  hell-dog  of  a  thought ;  neg- 
lected the  most  precious  feelings,  merely  to  keep  the  dog 
in  my  eye,  and  scare  him  away  ;  yet  was  forced  to  draw 
back  from  him,  exhausted  and  unsuccessful,  and  arrived 
at  the  step  of  the  altar  with  the  mournful  certainty  that  in 
a  little  while  I  should,  without  more  ado,  begin  laughing, 

198.  The  Populace  and  Cattle  grow  giddy  on  the  edge  of  no  abyss; 
with  the  Man  it  is  otherwise. 

11.  The  Golden  Calf  of  Self-love  soon  waxes  to  be  a  burning  Pha- 
laris's  Bull,  which  reduces  its  father  and  adorer  to  ashes. 

103.  The  male  Beau-crop,  which  surrounds  the  female  Roses  aud 
Lilies,  must  (if  I  rightly  comprehend  its  flatteries)  most  probably  pro 


288   SCHMKLZLES  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ. 

let  me  weep  and  moan  inwardly  as  I  liked.  Accord- 
ingly, while  I  and  a  very  worthy  old  Biirgermeister  were 
bowing  down  together  before  the  long  parson,  and  the 
latter  (perhaps  kneeling  on  the  low  cushion,  I  fancied 
him  too  long)  put  the  wafer  in  my  clenched  mouth,  I  felt 
all  the  muscles  of  laughter  already  beginning  sardoni- 
cally to  contract ;  and  these  had  not  long  acted  on  the 
guiltless  integument,  till  an  actual  smile  appeared  there ; 
and  as  we  bowed  the  second  time,  I  was  grinning  like  an 
ape.  My  companion  the  Biirgermeister  justly  expostu- 
lated with  me.  in  a  low  voice,  as  we  walked  round  behind 
the  altar :  "  In  Heaven's  name,  are  you  an  ordained 
Preacher  of  the  Gospel,  or  a  Merry- Andrew  ?  Is  it  Satan 
that  is  laughing  out  of  you  ? '' 

"  Ah,  Heaven  !  who  else  ?  "  said  I ;  and  this  being 
over,  I  finished  my  devotions  in  a  more  becoming  fashion. 

From  the  church  (I  now  return  to  the  Fliitz  one)  I 
proceeded  to  the  Tiger  Inn,  and  dined  at  the  table-d'kStey 
being  at  no  time  shy  of  encountering  men.  Previous  to 
the  second  course,  a  waiter  handed  me  an  empty  plate, 
on  which,  to  my  astonishment.  I  noticed  a  French  verse 
scratched  in  with  a  fork,  containing  nothing  less  than  a 
lampoon  on  the  Commandant  of  Fliitz.  Without  cere- 
mony. I  held  out  the  plate  to  the  company ;  saying,  I  had 
just,  as  they  saw,  got  this  lampooning  cover  presented  to 
me.  and  must  request  them  to  beai'  witness  that  I  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  matter.  An  ofiicer  directly 
changed   plate.^   with    me.     During   the   fifth  course,   I 

suppose  in  the  fair  the  manners  of  the  Spaniards  and  Italians,  -svlio 
offer  any  valuable,  by  way  of  present,  to  the  man  who  praises  it  ex- 
cessively. 

199.  But  not  many  existing  Governments,  I  believe,  do  behead 
under  pretext  of  trepanning;  or  sew  (in  a  more  choice  allegory)  the 
people's  lips  together,  under  pretence  of  sewing  the  harelips  in  them. 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ.   289 

could  not  but  admire  the  chemico-medical  ignorance  of 
the  company ;  for  a  hare,  out  of  which  a  gentleman 
extracted  and  exhibited  several  grains  of  shot,  that  is  to 
say,  therefore,  of  lead  alloyed  with  arsenic,  and  then 
cleaned  by  hot  vinegar,  did,  nevertheless,  by  the  specta- 
tors (I  expected)  continue  to  be  pleasantly  eaten. 

In  the  course  of  our  table-talk,  one  topic  seized  me 
keenly  by  my  weak  side,  I  mean  by  my  honor.  The  law 
custom  of  the  city  happened  to  be  mentioned,  as  it  affects 
natural  children ;  and  I  learned  that  here  a  loose  girl 
may  convert  any  man  she  pleases  to  select  into  the  father 
of  her  brat,  simply  by  her  oath.  "  Horrible  !  "  said  I,  and 
my  hair  stood  on  end.  "  In  this  way  may  the  worthiest 
head  of  a  family,  with  a  wife  and  children,  or  a  clergy- 
man lodging  in  the  Tiger,  be  stript  of  honor  and  inno- 
cence, by  any  wicked  chambermaid  whom  he  may  have 
seen,  or  who  may  have  seen  him,  in  the  course  of  her 
employment ! " 

An  elderly  officer  observed :  "  But  will  the  girl  swear 
herself  to  the  Devil  so  readily  ?  " 

What  logic !  "  Or  suppose,"  continued  I,  without  an- 
swer, "  a  man  happened  to  be  travelling  with  that  Vienna 
Locksmith,  who  afterwards  became  a  mother,  and  was 
brought  to  bed  of  a  baby  son ;  or  with  any  disguised 
Chevalier  d'Eon,  who  often  passes  the  night  in  his  com- 
pany, whereby  the  Locksmith  or  the  Chevalier  can 
swear  to  their  private  interviews  ;  no  delicate  man  of 
honor  will  in  the  end  risk  travelling  with  another ;  seeing 

67.  Hospitable  Entertainer,  wouldst  thou  search  into  thy  Guest? 
Accompany  him  to  another  Entertainer,  and  listen  to  him.  Just  so, 
wouldst  thou  become  better  acquainted  with  Mistress  in  an  hour,  than 
by  living  with  her  for  a  month?  Accompany  her  among  her  female 
fiiends  and  female  enemies  (if  that  is  no  pleonasm),  and  look  at  her! 
13  S 


290  SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ. 

he  knows  not  liow  soon  the  latter  may  pull  off  his  boots, 
and  pull  on  his  women's-puraps,  and  swear  his  companion 
into  Fatherhood,  and  himself  to  the  Devil !  " 

Some  of  the  company,  however,  misunderstood  my 
oratorical  fire  so  much,  that  they,  sheep-wise,  gave  some 
insinuations  as  if  I  myself  were  not  strict  in  this  point, 
but  lax.  By  Heaven !  I  no  longer  knew  what  I  was  eat- 
ing or  speaking.  Happily,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
table,  some  lying  story  of  a  French  defeat  was  started. 
Now,  as  I  had  read  on  the  street  cornei-s  that  French  and 
German  Proclamation,  calling  before  the  Court  Martial 
any  one  who  had  heard  war  rumors  (disadvantageous, 
namely),  without  giving  notice  of  them,  —  I,  as  a  man  not 
wilHng  ever  to  forget  himself,  had  nothing  more  prudent 
to  do  in  this  case,  than  to  withdraw  with  empty  ears, 
telHng  none  but  the  landlord  why. 

It  was  no  improper  time  ;  for  I  had  previously  deter- 
mined to  have  my  beard  shaven  about  half  past  four,  that 
so,  towards  five,  I  might  present  myself  with  a  chin  just 
polished  by  the  razor  smoothing-iron,  and  sleek  as  wove- 
paper,  without  the  smallest  root-stump  of  a  hair  left  on  it. 
By  way  of  preparation,  like  Pitt  before  Parliamentary 
debates,  I  poured  a  devilish  deal  of  Pontac  into  my 
stomach,  with  true  disgust,  and  contrary  to  all  sanitary 
rules ;  not  so  much  for  fronting  the  light  stranger  Barber, 
as  the  Minister  and  General  von  Schabacker,  with  whom 
I  had  it  in  view  to  exchange  perhaps  more  than  one  fiery 
statement. 

80.  In  the  Summer  of  life,  men  keep  digging  and  filling  ice-pits,  as 
well  as  circumstances  will  admit ;  that  so,  in  their  Winter,  they  may 
have  something  in  store  to  give  them  coolness. 

28.  It  is  impossible  for  me,  amid  the  tendril-forest  of  allusions  (even 
this  again  is  a  tendril-twig),  to  state  and  declare  on  the  spot  whether 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ.   291 

The  common  Hotel  Barber  was  ushered  in  to  me  ;  but 
at  first -view  you  noticed  in  liis  polygonal,  zigzag  visage^ 
more  of  a  man  that  would  finally  go  mad,  than  of  one 
growing  wiser.  Now,  madmen  are  a  class  of  persons 
whom  I  hate  incredibly  ;  and  nothing  can  take  me  to  see 
any  madhouse,  simply  because  the  first  maniac  among 
them  may  clutch  me  in  his  giant  fists  if  he  like ;  and  be- 
cause, owing  to  infection,  I  cannot  be  sure  that  I  shall 
ever  get  out  again  with  the  sense  which  I  brought  in. 
In  a  general  way,  I  sit  (when  once  I  am  lathered)  in 
such  a  posture  on  my  chair  as  to  keep  both  my  hands  (the 
eyes  I  fix  intently  on  the  barbering  countenance)  lying 
clenched  along  my  sides,  and  pointed  directly  at  the  mid- 
riff of  the  barber ;  that  so,  on  the  smallest  ambiguity  of 
movement,  I  may  dash  in  upon  him,  and  overset  him  in  a 
twinkling. 

I  scarce  know  rightly  how  it  happened ;  but  here, 
while  I  am  anxiously  studying  the  foolish,  twisted  visage 
of  the  shaver,  and  he  just  then  chanced  to  lay  his  long 
whetted  weapon  a  little  too  abruptly  against  my  bare 
throat,  I  gave  him  such  a  sudden  bounce  on  the  abdominal 
viscera,  that  the  silly  varlet  had  wellnigh  suicidally  slit 
his  own  windpipe.  For  me,  truly,  nothing  remained  but 
to  indemnify  the  man  ;  and  then,  contrary  to  my  usual 
principles,  to  tie  round  a  broad  stuffed  cravat,  by  way  of 
cloak  to  what  remained  unshorn. 

And  now  at  last  I  sallied  forth  to  the  General,  drinking 
out  the  remnant  of  the  Pontac,  as  I  crossed  the  threshold. 


all  the  Courts  or  Heights,  the  (Bougouer)  Snowline  of  Europe,  have 
ever  been  mentioned  in  my  writings  or  not;  but  I  could  wish  for  infor- 
mation on  the  subject,  that,  if  not,  I  may  try  to  do  it  still. 

36.  And  so  I  should  like,  in  all  cases,  to  be  the  First,  especially  in 
Begging.     The  first  prisoner-of-war,  the  first  cripple,  the  first  man  ru- 


292      SCHMELZLE'S    JOURNEY    TO    FLAETZ. 

I  hope  there  were  plans  lying  ready  within  me  for  an- 
swering rightly,  nay  for  asking.  The  Petition  I  carried 
in  my  pocket,  and  in  my  right  hand.  In  the  left,  I  had 
a  duplicate  of  it.  My  fire  of  spirit  easily  helped  over  the 
living  fence  of  ministerial  obstructions  ;  and  soon  I  unex- 
pectedly found  myself  in  the  ante-chamber,  among  his 
most  distinguished  lackeys  ;  persons,  so  far  as  I  could  see, 
not  inclined  to  change  flour  for  bran  with  any  one.  Se- 
lecting the  most  respectable  individual  of  the  number,  I 
delivered  liim  my  paper  request,  accompanied  with  the 
verbal  one  that  he  would  hand  it  in.  He  took  it,  but 
ungraciously.  I  waited  in  vain  till  far  in  the  sixth  hour, 
at  which  season  alone  the  gay  General  can  safely  be  ap- 
plied to.  At  last  I  pitch  upon  another  lackey,  and  repeat 
my  request ;  he  runs  about  seeking  liis  runaway  brother, 
or  my  Petition,  to  no  purpose  ;  neither  of  them  could  be 
found.  How  happy  was  it  that  in  the  midst  of  my  Pon- 
tac,  before  shaving,  I  had  written  out  the  duplicate  of  this 
paper  ;  and  therefore  —  simply  on  the  principle  that  you 
should  always  keep  a  second  wooden  leg  packed  into  your 
knapsack  when  you  have  the  first  on  your  body  —  and 
out  of  fear,  that,  if  the  original  petition  chanced  to  drop 
from  me  in  the  way  between  the  Tiger  and  Schabacker's, 
my  whole  journey  and  hope  would  melt  into  water,  — 
and  therefore,  I  say,  having  stuck  the  repeating  work  of 
that  original  paper  into  my  pocket,  I  had,  in  any  case, 
something  to  hand  in,  and  that  something  truly  a  Ditto. 
I  handed  it  in. 

ined  by  burning  (like  him  who  brings  the  first  fire-engine),  gains  the 
head-subscription  and  the  heart  3  the  next  comer  finds  nothing  but 
Duty  to  address:  and  at  last,  in  this  melodious  mancando  of  sympathy, 
matters  sink  so  far,  that  the  last  (if  the  last  but  one  may  at  least  have 
retired  laden  with  a  rich  "  God  help  you!  ")  obtains  from  the  benig- 
nant hand  nothing  more  than  its  fist.     And  as  in  Begging  the  first,  so 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ.   293 

Unhappily  six  o'clock  was  already  past.  The  lackey, 
however,  did  not  keep  me  long  waiting ;  but  returned 
with  —  I  may  say,  the  text  of  this  whole  Circular  —  the 
almost  rude  answer  (which  you,  my  Friends,  out  of  regard 
for  me  and  Schabacker,  will  not  divulge),  that:  "  In  case 
I  were  the  Attila  Schmelzle  of  Schabacker's  Regiment, 
might  lift  my  pigeon-liver  flag  again,  and  fly  to  the 
Devil,  as  I  did  at  Pimpelstadt."  Another  man  would 
hrive  dropt  dead  on  the  spot ;  I,  however,  walked  quite 
stoutly  off,  answering  the  fellow  :  "  With  great  pleasure 
indeed,  I  fly  to  the  Devil ;  and  so  Devil  a  fly  I  care." 
On  the  road  home,  I  examined  myself,  -whether  it  had  not 
been  the  Pontac  that  spoke  out  of  me  (though  the  very 
examination  contradicted  this,  for  Pontac  never  exam- 
ines) ;  but  I  found  that  nothing  but  I,  my  heart,  my 
courage  perhaps,  had  spoken ;  and  why,  after  all,  any 
whimpering  ?  Does  not  the  patrimony  of  my  good  wife 
endow  me  better  than  ten  Catechetical  Professorships  ? 
And  has  she  not  furnished  all  the  corners  of  my  book  of 
Life  with  so  many  golden  clasps,  that  I  can  open  it  for- 
ever without  wearing  it  ?  Let  henhearts  cackle  and  pip  ; 
I  flapped  my  pinions,  and  said :  "  Dash  boldly  through  it, 
come  what  may  ! "  I  felt  myself  excited  and  exalted  ;  I 
fancied  Republics,  in  which  I,  as  a  hero,  might  be  at 
home  ;  I  longed  to  be  in  that  noble  Grecian  time,  when 
one  hero  readily  put  up  with  bastinadoes  from  another, 
and  said,  "  Strike,  but  hear ! "  and  out  of  this  ignoble 
one,  where  men  will  scarcely  put  up  with  hard  words,  to 

in  Giving  I  should  like  to  be  the  last  5   one  obliterates  the   other, 
especially  the  last  the  first.     So,  however,  is  the  world  ordered. 

136.  If  you  mount  too  high  above  your  time,  your  ears  (on  the  side 
of  Fame)  are  httle  better  off  than  if  you  sink  too  deep  below  it;  in 
truth,  Charles  up  in  his  Balloon,  and  Halley  down  in  his  Diving- 
bell,  felt  equally  the  same  strange  pain  in  their  ears. 


294   SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ. 

say  nothing  of  more.  I  painted  out  to  my  mind  how  I 
should  feel,  if,  in  happier  circumstances,  I  were  uprooting 
hollow  Thrones,  and  before  whole  nations  mounting  on 
mighty  deeds  as  on  the  Temple-steps  of  Immortality ; 
and,  in  gigantic  ages,  finding  quite  other  men  to  outman 
and  outstrip,  than  the  mite-populace  about  me,  or,  at  the 
best,  here  and  there  a  Vulcanello.  I  thought  and  thought, 
and  grew  wilder  and  wilder,  and  intoxicated  myself  (no 
Pontac  intoxication  therefore,  which,  you  know,  increases 
more  by  continuance  than  cessation  of  drinking),  and  ges- 
ticulated openly,  as  I  put  the  question  to  myself:  "Wilt 
thou  be  a  mere  state-lapdog  ?  A  dog  s-dog,  a  pium  desi- 
derium  of  an  impium  desiderium,  an  Ex-Ex,  a  Nothing's- 
Nothing?  —  Fire  and  Fury!"  With  this,  however,  I 
dashed  down  my  hat  into  the  mud  of  the  market.  On 
lifting  and  cleaning  this  old  servant,  I  could  not  but  per- 
ceive how  worn  and  faded  it  was  ;  and  I  therefore  deter- 
mined instantly  to  purchase  a  new  one,  and  carry  the 
same  home  in  my  hand. 

I  accomplished  this.  I  bought  one  of  the  finest  cut. 
Strangely  enough,  by  this  hat,  as  if  it  had  been  a  Gradu- 
ation-hat, was  my  head  tried  and  examined  in  the  Ziegen- 
gasse  or  Goat-gate  of  Fliitz.  For  as  General  Schabacker 
came  driving  along  that  street  in  his  carriage,  and  I  (it 
need  not  be  said)  was  determined  to  avenge  myself,  not 
by  vulgar  clownislmess,  but  by  courtesy,  I  had  here  got 
one  of  the  most  ticklish  problems  imaginable  to  solve  on 
the  spur  of  the  instant.     You  observe,  if  I  swung  only 

25.  Ill  youth,  like  a  bliiid  man  just  couched  (and  what  is  birth  but 
a  couching  of  the  sight?),  you  take  the  Distant  for  the  Near,  the 
stany  heaven  for  tangible  room-funiiture,  pictures  for  objects;  and, 
to  the  young  man,  the  whole  world  is  sitting  on  his  very  nose,  till  re- 
peating bandaging  and  unbandaging  have  at  last  taught  him,  like  the 
blind  patient,  to  estimate  Distance  and  Appearance. 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ.   295 

the  fine  hat  which  I  carried  in  my  hand,  and  kept  the 
faded  one  on  my  head,  —  I  might  have  the  appearance  of 
a  perfect  clown,  who  does  not  doff  at  all ;  if,  on  the  other 
hand,  I  pulled  the  old  hat  from  my  head,  and  therewith 
did  my  reverence,  then  two  hats,  both  in  play  at  once  (let 
me  swing  the  other  at  the  same  time  or  not),  brought  my 
salute  within  the  verge  of  ridicule.  Now  do  you,  my 
Friends,  before  reading  further,  bethink  you  how  a  man 
was  to  extricate  himself  from  such  a  plight,  without 
losing  his  i:)resence  of  mind !  I  think,  perhaps,  by  this 
means  ;  by  merely  losing  his  hat.  In  one  word,  then,  I 
simply  dropped  the  new  hat  from  my  hand  into  the  mud, 
to  put  myself  in  a  condition  for  taking  off  the  old  hat  by 
itself,  and  swaying  it  in  needful  courtesy,  without  any 
shade  of  ridicule. 

Arrived  at  the  Tiger,  —  to  avoid  misconstructions,  I 
first  had  the  glossy,  fine,  and  superfine  hat  cleaned,  and 
some  time  afterwards  the  mud-hat  or  rubbis-hat. 

And  now,  weighing  my  momentous  Past  in  the  adjust- 
ing balance  within  me,  I  walked  in  fiery  mood  to  and 
fro.  The  Pontac  must  —  I  know  that  there  is  no  unadul- 
terated liquor  here  below  —  have  been  more  than  usually 
adulterated ;  so  keenly  did  it  chase  my  fancy  out  of  one 
fire  into  the  other.  I  now  looked  forth  into  a  wide, 
glittering  life,  in  which  I  lived  without  post,  merely  on 
money ;  and  which  I  beheld,  as  it  were,  sowed  with  the 
Delphic  caves,  and  Zenonic  walks,  and  Muse-hills  of  all 
the  Sciences,  which  I  might  now  cultivate  at  my  ease. 

125.  In  the  long  run,  out  of  mere  fear  and  necessity,  we  shall  become 
the  warmest  cosmopolites  I  know  of;  so  rapidly  do  ships  shoot  to  and 
fro,  and,  like  shuttles,  weave  Islands  and  Quarters  of  the  World  to- 
gether. For  let  but  the  political  weather-glass  fall  to-day  in  South 
America,  to-morrow  we  in  Europe  have  storm  and  thunder. 

19.  It  is  easier,  they  say,  to  climb  a  hill  when  you  ascend  back  fore- 


296      SCHIMELZLE'S    JOURNEY    TO    FLAETZ. 

In  particular,  I  should  have  it  in  my  power  to  apply  more 
diligently  to  writing  Prize-essays  for  Academies ;  of 
which  (that  is  to  say,  of  the  Prize-essays)  no  author 
need  ever  be  ashamed,  since,  in  all  cases,  there  is  a 
whole  crowning  Academy  to  stand  and  blush  for  the 
crownee.  And  even  if  the  Prize-marksman  does  not  hit 
the  crown,  he  still  continues  more  unkno^vn  and  more 
anonymous  (his  Device  not  being  unsealed)  than  any 
other  author,  who  indeed  can  publish  some  nameless 
Long-ear  of  a  book,  but  not  hinder  it  from  being,  by  a 
Literary  Ass-burial  {sepultura  asinina),  publicly  interred, 
in  a  short  time,  before  half  the  world. 

Only  one  thing  grieved  me  by  anticipation ;  the  sorroAV 
of  my  Berga,  for  whom,  dear  tired  wayfarer,  I  on  the 
morrow  must  overcloud  her  arrival,  and  her  shortened 
market-spectacle,  by  my  negatory  intelHgence.  She  would 
so  gladly  (and  who  can  take  it  ill  of  a  rich  farmer's 
Daughter  ?)  have  made  herself  somebody  in  Neusattel, 
and  overshone  many  a  female  dignitary !  Every  mortal 
longs  for  his  parade-place,  and  some  earlier  living  honor 
than  the  last  honors.  Especially  so  good  a  lowly-born 
housewife  as  my  Berga,  conscious  perhaps  rather  of  her 
metallic  than  of  her  spiritual  treasure,  would  still  wish  at 
banquets  to  be  mistress  of  some  seat  or  other,  and  so  in 
place  to  overtop  this  or  that  plucked  goose  of  the  neigh- 
borhood. 

most.  This,  perhaps,  might  admit  of  application  to  political  eminen- 
ces 5  if  you  still  turned  towards  them  that  part  of  the  body  on  which 
you  sit,  and  kept  your  face  directed  down  to  the  people ;  all  the  while, 
however,  removing  and  mounting. 

26.  Few  German  writers  are  not  original,  if  we  may  ascribe  origi- 
nality (as  is  at  least  the  conversational  practice  of  all  people)  to  a  man 
who  merely  dishes  out  his  own  thoughts  without  foreign  admixture. 
For  as,  between  their  ^lemory,  where  their  reading  or  foreign  matter 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ.  '  297 

It  is  in  this  point  of  view  that  husbands  are  so  indis- 
pensable. I  therefore  resolved  to  purchase  for  myself, 
and  consequently  for  her,  one  of  the  best  of  those  titles 
which  our  Courts  in  Germany  (as  in  a  Leipzig  sale- 
room) stand  offering  to  buyers,  in  all  sizes  and  sorts,  from 
Noble  and  Half-noble  down  to  Rath  or  Councillor ;  and 
once  invested  therewith,  to  reflect  from  my  own  Quarter- 
nobility  such  an  Eighth-part-nobility  on  this  true  soul, 
that  many  a  Neusattelitess  (I  hope)  shall  half  burst  with 
envy,  and  say  and  cry  :  "  Pooh,  the  stupid  farmer  thing  ! 
See  how  it  wabbles  and  bridles !  It  has  forgot  how  mat- 
ters stood  when  it  had  no  money-bag  and  no  Hofrath ! " 
For  to  the  Hofrathship  I  shall  before  this  have  attained. 

But  in  the  cold  solitude  of  my  room,  and  the  fire  of 
my  remembrances,  I  longed  unspeakably  for  my  Bergel- 
chen ;  I  and  my  heart  were  wearied  with  the  foreign 
busy  day  ;  no  one  here  said  a  kind  word  to  me,  which  he 
did  not  hope  to  put  in  the  bill.  Friends  !  I  languished 
-for  my  friend,  whose  heart  would  pour  out  its  blood  as  a 
balsam  for  a  second  heart ;  I  cursed  my  over-prudent 
regulations,  and  wished,  that,  to  have  the  good  Berga  at 
my  side,  I  had  given  up  the  stupid  houseware  to  all 
thieves  and  fires  whatsoever.  As  I  walked  to  and  fro, 
it  seemed  to  me  easier  and  easier  to  become  all  things,  an 
Exchequer-Rath,  an  Excise-Rath,  any  Rath  in  the  world, 
and  whatever  she  required  when  she  came. 

dwells,  and  their  Imagination  or  Productive  Power,  where  their  writ- 
ing or  own  peculiar  matter  originates,  a  sufficient  space  intervenes, 
and  the  boundary-stones  are  fixed  in  so  conscientiously  and  firmly 
that  nothing  foreign  may  pass  over  into  their  own,  or  inversely,  so 
that  they  may  really  read  a  hundred  works  without  losing  their  own 
primitive  flavor,  or  even  altering  it, — their  individuality  may,  I  be- 
lieve, be  considered  as  secured  ;  and  their  spiritual  nourishment,  their 
pancakes,  loaves,  fritters,  caviare,  and  meat-balls,  are  not  assimilated 
13* 


29S   SCHMELZLE'S  JOURXEY  TO  FLAETZ. 

**  See  thou  take  thv  pleasure  in  the  town ! "  had  Bergel- 
chen  kept  saving  the  whole  week  through.  But  how, 
withoat  her,  can  I  take  any  ?  Our  tears  of  sorrow 
{nends  dry  up.  and  accompany  with  their  own  ;  but  our 
teais  of  joy  we  find  most  readily  repeated  in  the  eyes  of 
cor  wires.  Pardon  me^  good  Friends,  these  libations 
of  my  sensibility ;  I  am  but  showing  you  my  heart  and 
my  Berga.  If  I  need  an  Absolution-merchant,  the  Pon- 
tac-merchant  is  the  man. 

Firs-  y:^'.'  in  Fiat:. 

Yet  the  wine  did  not  take  from  me  the  good  sense  to 
look  under  the  bed.  before  going  into  it,  and  examine 
whether  any  one  was  lurking  there:  for  example,  the 
Dwarf,  or  the  Rat-catcher,  or  the  Legations-Rath ;  also 
to  shove  the  key  under  the  latch  (which  I  reckon  the 
best  bolting  arrangement  of  all),  and  then,  by  way  of 
further  assurance,  to  bore  my  night-screws  into  the  door,* 
and  pile  ail  the  chairs  in  a  heap  behind  it :  and,  lastly,  to 
keep  on  my  breeches  and  shoes,  wishing  absolutely  to 
have  no  care  upon  my  mind. 

But  I  had  still  other  precautions  to  take  in  regard  to 
sleep-walking.  To  me  it  has  always  l>een  incomprehensi- 
ble how  so  many  men  can  go  to  bed.  and  lie  down  at  their 
ease  there,  without  reflecting  that  perhaps,  in  the  first 
sleep,  they  may  get  up  again  as  Somnambulists,  and  crawl 
over  the  tops  of  n>3fs  and  the  like  :  awakening  in  some 

to  their  system,  but  ghneo  back  pare  nnd  unaltered.  Often  in  niy 
own  mind,  I  figure  such  writers  as  lining  but  thousand-fold  more  arti- 
ficial Ducklings  from  Yaucasson's  Artificial  Duck  of  Wood.  For  in 
fact  ihey  aro  not  leas  cuiminglv  pfut  together  than  this  timber  Duck, 
which  win  gobble  meat  and  apparently  Toid  it  again,  und^  show  of 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ.   299 

spot  where  they  may  fall  in  a  moment  and  break  their 
necks.  While  at  home,  there  is  little  risk  in  my  sleep  ; 
because,  my  right  toe  being  fastened  every  night  with 
three  ells  of  tape  (I  call  it  in  jest  our  marriage  tie)  to 
my  wife's  left  hand,  I  feel  a  certainty  that,  in  case  I 
should  start  up  from  this  bed-arrest,  I  must  with  the 
tether  infallibly  awaken  her,  and  so  by  my  Berga,  as  by 
my  living  bridle,  be  again  led  back  to  bed.  But  here  in 
the  Inn,  I  had  nothing  for  it  but  to  knot  myself  once  or 
twice  to  the  bed-foot,  that  I  might  not  wander ;  though 
in  this  way,  an  irruption  of  villains  would  have  brought 
double  peril  with  it.  —  Alas  !  so  dangerous  is  sleep  at  all 
times,  that  every  man,  who  is  not  lying  on  his  back  a 
corpse,  must  be  on  his  guard  lest  with  the  general  system 
some  limb  or  other  also  fall  asleep ;  in  which  case  the 
sleeping  limb  (there  are  not  wanting  examples  of  it  in 
Medical  History)  may  next  morning  be  lying  ripe  for 
amputation.  For  this  reason,  I  have  myself  frequently 
awakened,  that  no  part  of  me  fall  asleep. 

Having  properly  tied  myself  to  the  bed-posts,  and  at 
length  got  under  the  coverlid,  I  now  began  to  be  dubious 
about  my  Pontac  Fire-bath,  and  apprehensive  of  the  val- 
orous and  tumultuous  dreams  too  likely  to  ensue  ;  which, 
alas,  did  actually  prove  to  be  nothing  better  than  heroic 
and  monarchic  feats,  castle-stormings,  rock-throwings,  and 
the  like.  This  point  also  I  am  sorry  to  see  so  little  at- 
tended to  in  medicine.  Medical  gentlemen,  as  well  as 
their  customers,  all  stretch  themselves   quietly  in  their 

having  digested  it,  and  derived  from  it  blood  and  juices ;  though  the 
secret  of  the  business  is,  the  artist  has  merely  introduced  an  ingenious 
compound  ejective  matter  behind,  with  which  concoction  and  nourish- 
ment have  nothing  to  do,  but  which  the  Duck  illusorily  gives  forth 
and  publishes  to  the  world. 


300      SCIIMELZLE-S    JOURNEY    TO    FLAETZ. 

beds,  without  one  among  them  considering  whether  a 
furious  rage  (supposing  him  also  directly  after  to  drink 
cold  water  in  his  dream),  or  a  heart-devouring  gi'ief,  all 
which  he  may  undergo  in  vision,  does  harm  to  life  or  not. 
Shortly  before  midnight,  I  awoke  from  a  heavy  dream, 
to  encounter  a  gliost-trick  much  too  ghostly  for  my  fancy. 
My  brother-in-law,  who  manufactured  it,  deserves  for  such 
vapid  cookery  to  be  named  before  you  without  reserve,  as 
the  maltmaster  of  this  washy  brewage.  Had  suspicion 
been  more  compatible  with  intrepidity,  I  might  perhaps, 
by  his  moi'al  maxim  about  this  matter,  on  the  road,  as 
well  as  by  his  taking  up  the  side-room,  at  the  middle  door 
of  which  stood  my  couch,  have  easily  divined  the  whole. 
But  now,  on  awakening,  I  felt  myself  blown  upon  by  a 
cold  ghost-breath,  which  I  could  nowise  deduce  from  the 
distant  bolted  window ;  a  point  I  had  rightly  decided,  for 
the  Dragoon  was  producing  the  phenomenon  through  the 
key-hole  by  a  paii'  of  bellows.  Every  sort  of  coldness  in 
the  night-season  reminds  }  ou  of  clay-coldness  and  spectre- 
coldness.  I  summoned  my  resolution,  however,  and  abode 
the  issue  :  but  now  the  very  coverlid  began  to  get  in  mo- 
tion :  I  pulled  it  towards  me  :  it  Avould  not  stay ;  sharply 
I  sit  upright  in  my  bed.  and  cry,  •'  TThat  is  that  ?  "  Xo 
answer  :  everywhere  silence  in  the  Inn  :  the  whole  room 
full  of  moonshine.  And  now  my  drawmg-plaster,  my 
coverlid,  actually  rose  up,  and  let  in  the  air ;  at  which  I 
felt  like  a  wounded  man  whose  cataplasm  you  suddenly 
pull  off.  In  thb  crisis,  I  made  a  bold  leap  from  tliis 
Devil's-torus,  and  leaping,  snapped  asunder  my  somnam- 
bulist tether.     "  Where  is  the  silly  human  fool,"  cried  I, 

15.  After  the  manner  of  the  fine  polished  English  folding-knives, 
there  are  now  also  folding-war-swords,  or,  in  other  words  —  Treaties 
of  Peace. 


» 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ.   301 

"  that  dares  to  ape  the  unseen  sublime  him  ?  "  But  on, 
above,  under  the  bed,  there  was  nothing  to  be  heard  or 
seen,  I  looked  out  of  the  window  ;  everywhere  spectral 
moonlight  and  street-stillness ;  nothing  moving  except 
(probably  from  the  wind),  on  the  distant  Gallows-hill,  a 
person  lately  hanged. 

Any  man  would  have  taken  it  for  self-deception  as  well 
as  I ;  therefore  I  again  wrapped  myself  in  my  passive  lit 
de  justice  and  air-bed,  and  waited  with  calmness  to  see 
whether  my  fright  would  subside  or  not. 

In  a  few  minutes  the  coverlid,  the  infernal  Faust's- 
mantle,  again  began  flying  and  towing  ;  also,  by  way  of 
change,  the  invisible  bed-maker  again  lifted  me  up.  Ac- 
cursed hour! — I  should  beg  to  know  whether,  in  the 
whole  of  cultivated  Europe,  there  is  one  cultivated  or 
uncultivated  man,  who,  in  a  case  of  this  kind,  would  not 
have  lighted  on  ghost-devilry  ?  I  lighted  on  it,  under 
my  piece  of  (self)  movable  property,  my  coverlid ;  and 
thought  Berga  had  died  suddenly,  and  was  now,  in  spirit, 
laying  hold  of  my  bed.  However,  I  could  not  speak  to 
her,  nor  as  little  to  the  Devil,  who  might  well  be  sup- 
posed to  have  a  hand  in  the  game  ;  but  I  turned  myself 
solely  to  Heaven,  and  prayed  aloud  :  "  To  thee  I  commit 
myself;  thou  alone  heretofore  hast  cared  for  thy  weak 
servant ;  and  I  swear  that  I  will  turn  a  new  leaf,"  —  a 
promise  which  shall  be  kept  nevertheless,  though  the 
whole  was  but  stupid  treachery  and  trick. 

My  prayer  had  no  effect  with  the  unchristian  Dragoon, 
who  now,  once  for  all,  had  got  me  prisoner  in  the  dragnet 
of  a  coverlid ;   and  heeded  little  whether  a  guest's  bed 

13.  Omnibus  una  salus  Sanctis,  sed  gloria  dispar ;  that  is  to  say 
(as  Divines  once  taught),  according  to  Saint  Paul,  we  have  all  the 
same  Beatitude  in  Heaven,  but  different  degi-ees  of  Honor.    Here,  on 


3C2       SCHMELZLES   JOriiXET    TO    FLAETZ. 

wene,  by  his  nkeaos,  made  a  5taie-bed  and  death-bed  or 
not.  He  spaa  oat  my  nerves,  like  gold-wire  through 
snmDer  and  amaDerhfdes^  to  uner  inanition  and  CTanition, 
ftrtliebed-dalbes  at  last  litaaUj  marched  off  to  the  door 
of  the  room. 

Now  was  the  momrait  to  lise  into  the  sablime.  and  to 
troaUe  mjseif  no  loiter  about  aagfat  here  beiow.  bat 
solUhr  to  derote  myself  to  death.  ^  Snatdi  me  away.'' 
cried  I,  and^  without  thinking,  cnet  three  croeses ;  ^  qidek. 
di^iatch  me,  ye  ^MBts;  Idiemnre  innoeoit  dum  thou- 
sands of  ^nnis  and  bhtaphemor?,  to  whom  je  yet  appear 
Dot^  hot  to  impnlhitBd  me."  Here  I  heard  a  swt  of 
langfa.  eidier  on  llie  street  or  in  the  ade-room.  At  this 
waim  hmwam  tCKie.  I  suddenly  Uoomed  op  again,  as  at 
the  ftmnm^  of  a  new  ^vii^  in  every  twig  and  lea£ 
THialhr  despisii^  the  willed  coveilid.  which  was  not  now 
tobe picked  £inom  the  door.  I  laid  myadf  down  mioovered. 
but  wann  and  peft^iirii^  from  other  canses,  and  soc»  fell 
asleepL  For  the  rest,  I  am  not  the  least  ashamed,  in  the 
free  of  all  refined  capital  cities.  —  thoogh  they  were 
gfamiBwg  here  at  my  hand.  —  that,  by  this  Devil-beli^ 
and  Devil-addrese.  I  have  attained  some  KIdrbrbb  to  our 
great  Gennaai  Lim,  to  Lather. 

Seamd  Day  im  Flatz^ 


Ea£lt  in  die  mondn^  I  ft\t  rays^  awdbened  br  the 
wdl-knowneoreriid;  it  had  laid  itself  on  ne  l&e  a  night- 
mare; I  gaped  op;  qoietyin  a  oomer  of  the  room,  sat  a 


of  tibK  intikewrifiiigvarld;  for  die  Bali- 
beatified  by  Oriticiaii,  laiieiker  fliej-be  gemal, 
O^anobCaiB  Ae 


•gpwn,  hofw  fir  (in  ^lite  of  de  SBoa 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ.   303 

red,  round,  blooming,  decorated  girl,  like  a  full-blown 
tulip  in  the  freshness  of  life,  and  gently  rustling  with  gay- 
ribbons  as  with  leaves. 

"  Who  's  there  —  how  came  you  in  ?  "  cried  I,  half- 
blind. 

"  I  covered  thee  softly,  and  thought  to  let  thee  sleep," 
said  Bergelchen ;  "  I  have  walked  all  night  to  be  here 
early  ;  do  but  look ! " 

She  showed  me  her  boots,  the  only  remnant  of  her 
travelling-gear  which,  in  the  moulting  process  of  the 
toilette,  she  had  not  stript  at  the  gate  of  Flatz. 

"  Is  there,"  said  I,  alarmed  at  her  coming  six  hours 
sooner,  and  the  more,  as  I  had  been  alarmed  all  niglit 
and  was  still  so,  at  her  mysterious  entrance ;  "  is  there 
some  fresh  woe  come  over  us,  fire,  murder,  robbery  ?  " 

She  answered:  "The  old  Rat  thou  hast  chased  so 
long,  died  yesterday ;  further  there  was  nothing  of  im- 
portance." 

"  And  all  has  been  managed  rightly,  and  according  to 
my  Letter  of  Instructions,  at  home  ?  "  inquired  I. 

"  Yes,  truly,"  answered  she ;  "  only  I  did  not  see 
the  Letter;  it  is  lost;  thou  hast  packed  it  among  thy 
clothes." 

Well,  I  could  not  but  forgive  the  blooming,  brave  pe- 
destrian all  omissions.  Her  eye,  then  her  heart  was 
bringing  fresh  cool  morning  air  and  morning  red  into  my 
sultry  hours.  And  yet,  for  this  kind  soul,  looking  into 
life  with  such  love  and  hope,  I  must  in  a  little  while 
overcloud  the  merited  Heaven  of  to-day,  with  tidings  of 

emolument  and  sale)  wUl  a  Dunce,  even  in  his  lifetime,  be  put  below  a 
Genius!  Is  not  a  shallow  writer  frequently  forgotten  in  a  single  Fair? 
while  a  deep  writer,  or  even  a  writer  of  genius,  will  blossom  through 
fifty  Fairs,  and  so  may  celebrate  his  Twenty-five  Years'  Jubilee,  be- 
fore, late  forgotten,  he  is  lowered  into  the  German  Temple  of  Fame ;  a 


3C4   5CHMELZLES  JOUEXEY  TO  FLAETZ. 

mj  ^Aflore  in  the  Cateohedeal  Professorship!  I  dallied 
and  postponed  to  the  utmost.  I  asked  how  she  had  got 
in.  as  the  whole  ckmaMx-de^frise  barricado  of  chairs  was 
still  standing  fast  at  the  dow.  She  laughed  heartily, 
courtesring  in  village  &shion.  and  said,  she  had  planned  it 
with  her  brother  the  day  before  yesterday,  knowing  my 
precanticMis  in  locking,  that  he  should  admit  her  into  my 
TtXHn.  that  so  she  might  cunningly  awaken  me.  And 
now  bolted  the  Dragoon  with  loud  laughter  into  the 
apartment,  and   cried:  -Slept  welL  brother?" 

In  this  wise  truly  the  whole  ghost-story  was  now  solved 
and  expounded,  as  if  by  the  pen  of  a  Biester  or  a  Hen- 
nings,  I  instantly  saw  through  the  entire  ghost-scheme 
which  oar  Dragoon  had  executed.  With  some  bitterness 
I  ttdd  him  my  conjectare,  and  hfe  sister  my  story.  But  he 
Bed  and  laughed ;  nay,  attempted  shamelessly  enough  to 
palm  spectre-notions  on  me  a  seccmd  time,  in  open  day.  I 
answered  coldly,  that  in  me  he  had  fotmd  the  wrong  man. 
granting  even  that  I  had  some  similarity  with  Lather. 
with  Hobbes.  with  Bmtns.  all  <^  whom  had  seen  and 
dreaded  ^losts.  He  replied,  tearing  the  iai^  awaj  fiwu 
their  originating  causes  :  -  All  he  could  say  was,  that  last 
Tiight  he  had  heard  scsne  pocw*  sinner  creaking  and 
lamenting  dcdefullj  enough;  and  finxn  thi?s  he  had  in- 
ferred it  must  be  an  unhappy  brother  set  upon  by 
gobKns." 

In  the  end,  his  aster^s  eyes  also  were  opened  to  the 
low  character  which  he  had  tried  to  act  with  me :  she 


pecnliaritir  of  flie  Pairi  LmcAed  clmrches  in 
-  -T  to  Voiknwr'")  T>er!=it  teraob  under  tfaeir 


ch»^;  and  Hieir 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ.   305 

sharply  flew  at  him,  pushed  him  with  both  hands  out  of 
his  and  my  door,  and  called  after  him :  "  "Wait,  thou  vil- 
lain, I  will  mind  it  I  " 

Then  hastily  turning  round,  she  fell  on  my  neck,  and 
(at  the  wrong  place)  into  laughter,  and  said :  "  The  -vvild 
fool !  But  I  could  not  keep  my  laugh  another  minute, 
and  he  was  not  to  see  it.  Forgive  the  ninny,  thou  a 
learned  man,  his  ass-pranks  ;  what  can  one  expect  ?  " 

I  inquired  whether  she,  in  her  nocturnal  travelling, 
had  not  met  any  spectral  persons ;  though  I  knew  that  to 
her  a  wild  beast,  a  river,  a  half  abyss,  are  nothing.  ISTo, 
she  had  not ;  but  the  gay-di'essed  town's-people,  she  said, 
had  scared  her  in  the  morning.  0,  how  I  do  love  these 
soft  Harmonica-quiverings  of  female  fright ! 

At  last,  however,  I  was  forced  to  bite  or  cut  the  colo- 
quinta-apple,  and  give  her  the  half  of  it ;  I  mean  the 
news  of  my  rejected  petition  for  the  Catechetical  Pro- 
fessorship. Wishing  to  spare  this  joyful  heai-t  the  rude- 
ness of  the  whole  truth,  and  to  subtract  something  from 
a  heavy  burden,  more  fit  for  the  shoulders  of  a  man,  I 
began :  "  Bergelchen,  the  Professorship  affair  is  taking 
another,  though  still  a  good  enough  course ;  the  General, 
whom  may  the  Devil  and  his  Grandmother  teach  sense, 
will  not  be  taken  except  by  storm ;  and  storm  he  shall 
have,  as  certainly  as  I  have  on  my  nightcap." 

"  Then  thou  art  nothing  yet  ?  "  inquired  she. 

"  For  the  moment,  indeed,  not !  "  answered  I. 

89.  In  times  of  misfortune,  the  Ancients  supported  themselves  with 
Philosophy  or  Christianity;  the  modems  again  (for  example,  in  the 
reign  of  Terror)  take  to  Pleasure ;  as  the  wounded  Buffalo,  for  band- 
age and  salve,  rolls  himself  in  the  mire. 

181.  God  be  thanked  that  we  live  nowhere  forever  except  in  Hell  or 
Heaven;  on  Earth  otherwise  we  should  grow  to  be  the  veriest  rascals, 

T 


5c6   SCHMELZLE-S  JOUKXEY  TO  FLAETZ. 

**  But  betoi-e  Satiirdar  night  ?  "  said  she. 

"  Not  quite,"  said  I. 

'•  Then  am  I  sore  stricken,  and  could  leap  out  of  the 
window,"  said  she,  and  turned  away  her  rosy  face,  to  hide 
its  wet  eyes,  and  was  silent  very  long.  Then,  with  pain- 
fully quivering  voice,  she  began  :  "  Good  Christ,  stand  by 
me  at  Xeusattol  on  Sunday,  when  these  high-prancing 
pridetul  dames  look  at  me  in  church,  and  I  grow  scarlet 
for  shame  I  *' 

Here  in  symj^iathetic  woe  I  sprang  out  of  bed  to  the 
dear  soul,  over  whose  brightly  blooming  cheeks  warm 
teai-s  were  rolling,  and  cried :  "  Tliou  true  heart,  do  not 
tear  me  in  pieces  so !  May  I  die.  if  yet  in  these  dog-days 
I  become  not  all  and  everything  that  thou  wishest  I 
Speak,  wilt  thou  be  ]Mining-riithin.  Build-riithin.  Court- 
liithin.  War-iiithin.  Chaniber-rathin.  Commerce-rathin, 
Legations-riithin.  or  Devil  and  his  Dam's  riithin  :  I  am 
here,  and  will  buy  it,  and  be  it.  To-morrow  I  send  riding 
posts  to  Saxony  and  Hessia.  to  Prussia  and  Russia,  to 
Friesland  and  Katzenellenlx^gen.  and  demand  patents. 
Xay,  I  will  carry  matters  further  than  another,  and  be  all 
tilings  at  once.  Flachsenfingen  Court-rath,  Scheerau  Ex- 
cise-rath. Haarhaar  Building-rath.  Pestitz  *  Chamber-rath 
(for  we  have  the  cash) :  and  thus,  alone  and  single- 
handed,   represent  with  one  podtw  and  corpus  a  whole 

and  the  World  a  House  of  lucurables,  for  want  of  the  dogiioctor  (the 
Hangman >.  and  the  issue-cord  (on  the  Gallows),  and  the  sulphur-and 
chalybeate  raedioiues  (on  Battle-fields).  So  that  we  too  find  our 
gigantic  moral  force  dependent  on  the  Debt  of  Xature  which  we  have 
to  pav.  exactly  as  your  politicians  (for  example,  the  author  of  the 
Xetc  Leciathan)  demonstrate  that  the  English  have  their  Xaiional  Debt 
to  thank  for  their  superiority. 

*  Cities  of  Kichter's  romance  kingdom.    Flachsenfingen  he  sorae- 
tiraes  calls  Kiein-  Wten,  Little  Vienna.  —  Ed. 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ.   307 

Rath-session  of  select  Raths  ;  and  stand,  a  complete  Le- 
gion of  Honor,  on  one  single  pair  of  legs  ;  the  hke  no  man 
ever  did. 

"  O,  now  thou  art  angel-good  !  "  said  she,  and  gladder 
tears  rolled  down ;  "  thou  shalt  counsel  me  thyself  which 
are  the  finest  Raths,  and  these  we  will  be." 

"  No,"  continued  I,  in  the  fire  of  the  moment,  "  neither 
shall  this  serve  us  ;  to  me  it  is  not  enough  that  to  Mrs. 
Chaplain  thou  canst  announce  thyself  as  Building-rathin, 
to  Mrs.  Town-parson  as  Legations-rathin,  to  Mrs.  Bur- 
germeister  as  Court-rathin,  to  Mrs.  Road-and-toll-sur- 
veyor  as  Commerce-riithin,  or  how  and  where  thou 
pleasest " 

"  Ah  !  my  own  too  good  Attelchen  ! "  said  she. 

"  —  But,"  continued  I,  "  I  shall  likewise  become  cor- 
responding member  of  the  several  Learned  Societies  in 
the  several  best  capital  cities  (among  which  I  have  only 
to  choose)  ;  and  truly  no  common  actual  member,  but  a 
wdiole  honorary  member  ;  then  thee,  as  another  honorary 
member,  growing  out  of  my  honorary-membership,  I  uplift 
and  exalt." 

Pardon  me,  my  Friends,  this  warm  cataplasm,  or  de- 
ception-balsam for  a  wounded  breast,  whose  blood  is  so 
pure  and  precious,  that  one  may  be  permitted  to  endeavor, 
with  all  possible  stanching-lints  and  spider-webs,  to  drive 
it  back  into  the  fair  heart,  its  home. 

But  now  came  bright  and  brightest  hours.  I  had  con- 
quered Time,  I  had  conquered  myself  and  Berga ;  sel- 
dom does  a  conqueror,  as  I  did,  bless  both  the  victorious 

63.  To  apprehend  danger  from  the  Education  of  the  People  is  like 
fearing  lest  the  thunderbolt  strike  into  the  house  because  it  has  win. 
dotes ;  whereas  the  lightning  never  comes  through  these,  but  through 
their  lead  framing,  or  down  by  the  smoke  of  the  chimney. 


3o8   SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ. 

and  the  vanqiiished  party.  Berga  called  back  her  for- 
mer Heaven,  and  jnilled  off  her  dusty  boots,  and  on  her 
flowery  shoes.  Precious  mornmg  beverage,  intoxicating 
to  a  heart  that  loves !  I  felt  (if  the  low  figure  may  be 
permitted)  a  double-beer  of  courage  in  me,  now  that  I 
had  one  being  more  to  protect.  In  general  it  is  my  na- 
ture —  which  the  honorable  Premier  seems  not  to  be  fully 
aware  of —  to  grow  bolder  not  among  the  bold,  but  fastest 
among  poltroons,  the  bad  example  acting  on  me  by  the 
rule  of  contraries.  Little  touches  may  in  this  case 
shadow  forth  man  and  wife  without  casting  them  into  the 
shade.  When  the  trim  waiter  with  his  green  silk  apron 
brought  up  cracknels  for  breakfast,  and  I  told  him, 
'•  Johann,  for  two  !  "  Berga  said  :  •'  He  would  oblige  her 
very  much,"  and  called  him  Herr  Johann. 

Bergelchen,  more  fluniliar  with  rural  burghs  than  cap- 
ital cities,  felt  a  good  deal  amazed  and  alarmed  at  the 
coffee-trays,  dressing-tables,  paper-hangings,  sconces,  ala- 
baster inkholders,  with  Egyptian  emblems,  as  well  as  at 
the  gilt  bell-handle,  lying  ready  for  any  one  to  pull  out 
or  to  push  in.  Accordingly,  she  had  not  courage  to  walk 
through  the  hall,  with  its  lustres,  purely  because  a  whis- 
tling, whiffling  Cap-and-feather  was  gesturing  up  and 
down  in  it.  Nay,  her  poor  heart  was  like  to  fail  when 
she  peeped  out  of  the  window  at  so  many  gay,  promenad- 
ing town's  people  (I  was  briskly  that  in  a  little  while,  at 
my  side,  she  must  break  into  whistling  a  Gascon  air 
down  over  them)  ;  and  thought  the  middle  of  this  dazzling 
courtly  throng.  In  a  case  like  this,  reasons  are  of  less 
avail  than  examples.     I  tried  to  elevate  my  Bergelchen, 

76.  Your  economical,  preaching  Poetry  apparently  supposes  that  a 
surgical  Stone-cutter  is  an  Artistical  one ;  and  a  Pulpit  or  a  Sinai  a 
Hiirof  the  Muses. 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ.   309 

by  reciting  some  of  my  nocturnal  dream-feats  ;  for  ex- 
ample, how,  riding  on  a  whale's  back,  with  a  three- 
pronged  fork,  I  had  pierced  and  eaten  three  eagles ;  and 
by  more  of  the  like  sort ;  but  I  produced  no  effect ;  per- 
haps, because  to  the  timid  female  heart  the  battle-field 
was  presented  rather  than  the  conqueror,  the  abyss 
rather  than  the  overleaper  of  it. 

At  this  time  a  sheaf  of  newspapers  was  brought  me, 
full  of  gallant,  decisive  victories.  And  though  these  hap- 
pen only  on  one  side,  and  on  the  other  are  just  so  many 
defeats,  yet  the  former  somehow  assimilate  more  with  my 
blood  than  the  latter,  and  inspire  me  (as  Schiller's  Rob- 
bers used  to  do)  with  a  strange  inclination  to  lay  hold  of 
some  one,  and  thrash  and  curry  him  on  the  spot.  Un- 
luckily for  the  waiter,  he  had  chanced  even  now,  like  a 
military  host,  to  stand  a  triple  bell-order  for  march,  be- 
fore he  would  leave  his  ground  and  come  up.  "  Sir," 
began  I,  my  head  full  of  battle-fields,  and  my  arm  of  in- 
clination to  baste  him ;  and  Berga  feared  the  very  worst, 
as  I  gave  her  the  well-known  anger  and  alarm  signal, 
namely,  shoved  up  my  cap  to  my  hindhead,  — "  Sir,  is 
this  your  way  of  treating  guests  ?  Why  don't  you  come 
promptly  ?  Don't  come  so  again ;  and  now  be  going, 
friend  ! "  Although  his  retreat  was  my  victory,  I  still 
kept  briskly  cannonading  on  the  field  of  action,  and  fired 
the  louder  (to  let  him  hear  it),  the  more  steps  he  de- 
scended in  his  flight.  Bergelchen,  —  who  felt  quite  hor- 
ror-struck  at  my  fury,  particularly  in  a  quite  strange 

115.  According  to  Smith,  the  universal  measure  of  economical  value 
is  Labor.  This  fact,  at  least  in  regard  to  spiritual  and  poetical  value, 
we  Germans  had  discovered  before  Smith ;  and  to  my  knowledge,  we 
have  always  preferred  the  learned  poet  to  the  poet  of  genius,  and  the 
heavy  book  full  of  labor  to  the  light  one  full  of  sport. 


310   SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ. 

house,  and  at  a  quality  waiter  with  silk  apron,  mustered 
all  her  soft  words  against  the  wild  ones  of  a  man-of-war, 
and  spoke  of  dangers  that  might  follow.  "  Dangers," 
answered  I,  "  are  just  what  I  seek ;  but  for  a  man  there 
are  none  ;  in  all  cases  he  will  either  conquer  or  evade 
them,  either  show  them  front  or  back." 

I  could  scarcely  lay  aside  this  indignant  mood,  so  sweet 
was  it  to  me,  and  so  much  did  I  feel  refreshed  by  the  fire 
of  rage,  and  quickened  m  my  breast  as  by  a  benignant 
stimulant.  It  belongs  certainly  to  the  class  of  Unrecog- 
nized Mercies  (on  which,  in  ancient  times,  special  ser- 
mons were  preached),  that  one  is  never  more  completely 
in  his  Heaven  and  3Ionplaisir  (a  pleasure-palace),  than 
while  in  the  midst  of  right  hearty  storming  and  indigna- 
tion. Heavens  !  what  might  not  a  man  of  weight  accom- 
plish in  this  new  walk  of  charity  !  The  gall  bladder  is  for 
us  the  chief  swimming-bladder  and  Montgolfier ;  and  the 
filling  of  it  costs  us  nothing  but  a  contumelious  word  or 
two  from  some  bystander.  And  does  not  the  whirlwind 
Luther,  with  whom  I  nomse  compare  myself,  confess,  in 
his  Tahle-Talh,  that  he  never  preached,  sung,  or  prayed 
so  well,  as  while  in  a  rage  ?  Truly,  he  was  a  man  sufii- 
cient  of  himself  to  rouse  many  others  into  rage. 

The  whole  morning  till  noon  now  passed  in  viewing 
sights,  and  trafiicking  for  wares  ;  and  indeed,  for  the  great- 
est part,  in  the  broad  street  of  our  Hotel.  Berga  needed 
but  to  press  along  with  me  into  the  market  throng ;  needed 
but  to  look,  and  see  that  she  was  decorated  more  accord- 
ing to  the  fashion  than  hundi-eds  like  her.     But  soon,  in 

4.  The  Hypocrite  does  not  imitate  the  old  practice,  of  cutting  fruit 
by  a  knife  poisoned  only  on  the  one  side,  and  giving  the  poisoned  side 
to  the  victim,  the  cutter  eating  the  sound  side  himself;  on  the  con- 
trary, he  so  disinterestedly  inverts  this  practice,  that  to  others  he 


I 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ.   311 

her  care  for  household  gear,  she  forgot  that  of  dress,  and 
in  the  potter-market  the  toilette-table  faded  from  her 
thoughts. 

I,  for  my  share,  full  of  true  tedium,  while  gliding  after 
her  through  her  various  marts,  with  their  long  cheapen- 
ings  and  chafferings,  merely  acted  the  Philosopher  hid 
within  me.  I  weighed  this  empty  Life,  and  the  heavy 
value  which  is  put  upon  it,  and  the  daily  anxiety  of  man 
lest  it,  this  lightest  down-feather  of  the  Earth,  fly  off,  and 
feather  him,  and  take  him  with  it.  These  thoughts,  per- 
haps, I  owe  to  the  street-fry  of  boys,  who  were  turning  their 
market-freedom  to  account,  by  throwing  stones  at  one  an- 
other all  round  me ;  for  in  the  midst  of  this  tumult  I 
vividly  figured  myself  to  be  a  man  who  had  never  seen 
war ;  and  who,  therefore,  never  having  experienced  that 
often  of  a  thousand  bullets  not  one  will  hit,  feels  appre- 
hensive of  these  few  silly  stones  lest  they  beat  in  his  nose 
and  eyes.  0,  it  is  the  battle-field  alone  that  sows,  ma- 
nures, and  nourishes  true  courage,  courage  even  for  daily, 
domestic,  and  smallest  perils.  For  not  till  he  comes  from 
the  battle-field  can  a  man  both  sing  and  cannonade  ;  like 
the  canary-bird,  which,  though  so  melodious,  so  timid,  so 
small,  so  tender,  so  solitary,  so  soft-feathered,  can  yet 
be  trained  to  fire  off  cannon,  though  cannon  of  smaller 
calibre. 

After  dinner  (in  our  room)  we  issued  from  the  Pur- 
gatory of  the  market-tumult,  —  where  Berga,  at  every 
booth,  had  something  to  order,  and  load  her  attendant 
maid  with, — into  Heaven,  into  the  Dog  Inn,  as  the  best 
Fliitz   public   and   pleasure-house  without  the   gates   is 

shows  and  gives  the  sound  moral  half,  or  side,  and  retains  for  himself 
the  poisoned  one.  Heavens!  compared  with  such  a  man,  how  wicked 
does  the  Devil  seem ! 


312   SCHMELZLES  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ. 

named,  where,  in  market  time,  hundreds  turn  in.  and  see 
thousands  going  by.  On  the  way  thither,  my  little  wife, 
my  elbow-tendril,  as  it  were,  had  extracted  from  me  such 
a  measure  of  courage,  that,  while  going  through  the  Gate 
(where  I.  aware  of  the  military  order,  that  you  must  not 
pass  j\ear  the  sentry,  threw  myself  over  to  the  other  side), 
she  quietly  glided  on.  close  by  the  very  guns  and  fixed 
bayonets  of  the  City  Guard.  Outside  the  wall,  I  could 
direct  her.  with  my  finger  to  the  bechained.  begrated, 
gigantic  Schabacker-Palace.  mounting  up  even  externally 
on  stairs,  where  I  hist  night  had  called  and  (it  may  be) 
stormed :  '•  I  had  rather  take  a  peep  at  the  Giant,"  said 
she,  "and  the  Dwai-f;  why  else  are  we  under  one  roof 
^vith  them  ?  " 

In  the  pleasure-house  itself  we  found  sufiicient  pleas- 
ure ;  encircled  as  we  were,  with  blooming  faces  and 
meadows.  In  my  secret  heart.  I  all  along  kept  looking 
down,  with  success,  on  Schabackers  refusal :  and  till  mid- 
night made  myself  a  happy  day  of  it.  I  had  deserved  it, 
Berga  still  more.  Nevertheless,  about  one  in  the  morn- 
ing. I  was  destined  to  find  a  windmill  to  tilt  with  ;  a 
windmill,  which  truly  lays  about  it  with  somewhat  longer, 
stronger,  and  more  numerous  arms  than  a  giant,  for  which 
Don  Quixote  might  readily  enough  have  taken  it.  On 
the  market  place,  for  reasons  more  easily  fancied  than 
specified  in  words,  I  let  Berga  go  along  some  twenty 
paces  before  me:  and  I  myself,  for  these  foresaid  rea- 
sons, retire  without  malice  behind  a  covered  booth,  the 

67.  Individnal  Minds,  nay,  Political  Bodies,  are  like  organic  bodies  j 
extract  the  interior  air  fi-om  them,  the  atmosphere  crushes  them  to- 
gether }  pmnp  oflF  tinder  the  bell  the  exterior  resisting  air,  the  interior 
inflates  and  bursts  them.  Therefore  let  ererv  State  keep  up  its  inter- 
nal and  its  external  resistance  both  at  once. 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ.   313 

tent  most  probably  of  some  rude  trader ;  and  lingered 
there  a  moment  according  to  circumstances.  Lo !  steer- 
ing hither  with  dart  and  spear,  comes  the  Booth-watcher, 
and  coins  and  stamps  me  on  the  spot,  into  a  filcher  and 
housebreaker  of  his  Booth-street ;  though  the  simpleton 
sees  nothing  but  that  I  am  standing  in  the  comer,  and 
doing  anything  but  —  taking.  A  sense  of  honor  without 
callosity  is  never  blunted  for  such  attacks.  But  how  in 
the  dead  of  night  was  a  man  of  this  kind,  who  had  noth- 
ing in  his  head  —  at  the  utmost  beer,  instead  of  brains  — 
to  be  enlightened  on  the  truth  of  the  matter  ? 

I  shall  not  conceal  my  perilous  resource  ;  I  seized  the 
fox  by  the  tail,  as  we  say ;  in  other  words,  I  made  as  if  I 
had  been  muddled,  and  knew  not  rightly,  in  my  liquor, 
what  I  was  about.  I  therefore  mimicked  everything  I 
was  master  of  in  this  department ;  staggered  hither  and 
thither ;  splayed  out  my  feet  like  a  dancing-master ;  got 
into  zigzag  in  spite  of  all  efforts  at  the  straight  line ;  nay, 
I  knocked  my  good  head  (perhaps  one  of  the  clearest  and 
emptiest  of  the  night)  like  a  full  one,  against  real  posts. 

However,  the  Booth-bailiff,  who  probably  had  been 
oftener  drunk  than  I,  and  knew  the  symptoms  better,  or 
even  felt  them  in  himself  at  this  moment,  looked  upon  the 
whole  exhibition  as  mere  craft,  and  shouted  dreadfully : 
"  Stop,  rascal ;  thou  art  no  more  drunk  than  I !  I  know 
thee  of  old.  Stand,  I  say,  till  I  speak  to  thee !  Wouldst 
have  thy  long  finger  in  the  market,  too  ?  Stand,  dog,  or 
I  '11  make  thee !  " 

You  see  the  whole  nodus  of  the  matter.  I  whisked 
away  zigzag  among  the  booths  as  fast  as  possible,  from 

8.  In  great  Saloons,  the  real  stove  is  masked  into  a  pretty  ornament- 
ed sham  stove  ;  so,  likewise,  it  is  'fit  and  pretty  that  a  virgin  Love 
should  always  hide  itself  in  an  interesting  virgin  Fnendship. 
U 


314  SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ. 

the  claws  of  tliis  rude  Tosspot ;  yet  he  still  hobbled  after 
me.  But  my  Teutoberga,  who  had  heard  somewhat  of  it 
came  running  back  ;  clutched  the  tipsy  market-warder  by 
the  collar,  and  said  (shrieking,  it  is  true,  in  village  wise)  : 
"  Stupid  sot,  go  sleep  the  drink  out  of  thy  head,  or  I  '11 
teach  thee !  Dost  know,  then,  whom  thou  art  speaking 
to  ?  My  husband,  Anny-chaplain  Schmelzle  under  Gen- 
eral and  Minister  von  Schabacker  at  Pimpelstadt,  thou 
blockhead  !  —  Fie  !  Take  shame,  fellow  ! "  The  watch- 
man mumbled,  "  Meant  no  harm,"  and  reeled  about  his 
business.  "  0  thou  Lioness  !  "  said  I,  in  the  transport  of 
love,  "  why  hast  thou  never  been  in  any  deadly  peril,  that 
I  might  show  thee  the  Lion  in  thy  husband  !  " 

Thus  lovingly  we  both  reached  home  ;  and  perhaps  in 
the  sequel  of  this  Fair  day  might  still  have  enjoyed  a 
glorious  after-midnight,  had  not  the  Devil  led  my  eye  to 
the  ninth  volume  of  Lichtenberg's  Works,  and  the  206th 
page,  where  this  passage  occurs  :  "  It  is  not  impossible, 
that,  at  a  future  period,  our  Chemists  may  light  on  some 
means  of  suddenly  decomposing  the  Atmosphere  by  a  sort 
of  Ferment.  In  this  w^ay  the  world  may  be  destroyed." 
Ah  !  true  indeed !  Since  the  Earth-ball  is  lapped  up  in 
the  larger  Atmospheric  ball,  let  but  any  chemical  scoun- 
drel, in  the  remotest  scoundrel-island,  say  in  New. Hol- 
land, devise  some  decomposing  substance  for  the  Atmos- 
phere, like  what  a  spark  of  fire  would  be  for  a  powder- 
wagon  ;  in  a  few  seconds,  the  monstrous  devouring  world- 
storm  catches  me  and  you  in  Flatz  by  the  throat ;  my 
breathing,  and  the  like,  in  this  choke-air  is  over,  and  the 

12.  Nations  —  unlike 'rivers,  which  precipitate  their  impurities  in 
level  places  and  when  at  rest  —  drop  their  baseness  just  Avhilst  in 
the  most  violent  motion  ;  and  become  the  dirtier  the  farther  they  flow 
along  through  lazy  flats. 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOUKNEY  TO  FLAETZ.   315 

whole  game  ended  !  The  Earth  becomes  a  boundless  gal- 
lows, where  the  very  cattle  are  hanged;  worm-powder, 
and  bug-liquor,  Bradly  ant-ploughs,  and  rat-poison,  and 
wolf-traps  are,  in  this  universal  world-trap  and  world- 
poison,  no  longer  specially  needful ;  and  the  Devil  takes 
the  whole,  in  the  Bartholomew-night,  when  this  cursed 
"  Ferment  "  is  invented. 

From  the  true  soul,  however,  I  concealed  these  deadly 
Night  Thoughts  ;  seeing  she  would  either  painfully  have 
sympathized  in  them,  or  else  mirthfully  laughed  at  them. 
I  merely  gave  orders  that  next  morning  (Saturday)  she 
was  to  be  standing  booted  and  ready,  at  the  outset  of  the 
returning  coach ;  if  so  were  she  would  have  me  speedily 
fulfil  her  wishes  in  regard  to  that  stock  of  Rathships 
which  lay  so  near  her  heart.  She  rejoiced  in  my  pur- 
pose, gladly  suiTendering  the  market  for  such  prospects. 
I  too  slept  sound,  my  great  toe.  tied  to  her  finger  the 
whole  night  through. 

The  Dragoon  next  morning  twitched  me  by  the  ear, 
and  secretly  whispered  into  it  that  he  had  a  pleasant  fair- 
ing to  give  his  sister;  and  so  would  ride  off  somewhat 
early,  on  the  nag  he  had  yesterday  purchased  of  the 
horse-dealer.     I  thanked  him  beforehand. 

At  the  appointed  hour  all  gayly  started  from  the  Staple, 
I  excepted ;  for  I  still  retained,  even  in  the  fairest  day- 
light, that  nocturnal  Devil's- Ferment  and  Decomposition 
(of  my  cerebral  globe  as  well  as  of  the  Earth-globe)  fer- 
menting in  my  head ;  a  proof  that  the  night  had  not 
affected  me,  or  exaggerated  my  fear.  The  Blind  Passen- 
ger, whom  I  liked  so  ill,  also  mounted  along  with  us,  and 

28.  When  Nature  takes  the  huge  old  Earth-round,  the  Earth-loaf 
and  kneads  it  up  again,  for  the  purpose  of  introducing,  under  this  pie- 
crust, new  stuflang  and  Dwarfs  —  she  then,  for  most  part,  as  a  mother 


3l6      SCIIMELZLE-S    JOURNEY    TO    FLAETZ. 

looked  at  me  as  usual,  but  without  effect ;  for  on  tbis 
occasion,  when  the  destruction  not  of  myself  only,  but  of 
worlds,  was  occupying  my  thoughts,  the  Passenger  was 
nothing  to  me  but  a  joke  and  a  show  ;  as  a  man.  wliile 
Lis  leg  is  a-sawing  off,  does  not  feel  the  throbbing  of  his 
heart ;  or  amid  the  humming  of  cannon,  does  not  guard 
himself  from  that  of  wasps  ;  so  to  me  any  Passenger, 
with  all  the  firebrands  he  might  throw  into  my  near  or 
distant  Future,  could  appear^  but  ludicrous,  at  a  time 
when  I  was  reflecting  that  the  "  Fennent "  might,  even 
in  my  journey  between  Fliitz  and  Neusattel,  be,  by  some 
American  or  Em'opcan  man  of  science,  quite  guiltlessly 
experimenting  and  decomposing,  lighted  upon  by  accident 
and  let  loose.  The  question,  nay  prize-question  now, 
however,  were  this  :  *•  In  how  far.  since  Lichtenberg's 
threatening,  it  may  not  appear  world-murderous  and  self- 
murderous,  if  enlightened  Potentates  of  chemical  nations 
do  not  enjoin  it  on  their  chemical  subjects,  —  who  in  their 
decompositions  and  separations  may  so  easily  separate 
the  soul  from  their  body  and  unite  Heaven  with  Earth, — 
not  in  future  to  make  any  other  chemical  experiments 
than  those  already  made,  which  hitherto  have  profited 
the  State  rather  than  harmed  it  ? " 

Unfortimately,  I  continued  sunk  in  this  Doomsday  of 
the  Ferment  with  all  my  thoughts  and  meditations,  with- 
out, in  the  whole  course  of  our  return  from  Fliitz  to 
Xeusattel.  suffering  or  observing  anything,  except  that  I 
actually  arrived  there,  and  at  the  same  time  saw  the  Blind 
Passenger  once  more  go  his  ways. 

My  Bergelchen  alone  had  I  constantly  looked  at  by  the 

when  baking  will  d.o  to  her  daughters,  gives  in  jest  a  little  fi-action  of 
the  dough  (two  or  three  thousand  square  leagues  of  such  dough  are 
enough  for  a  child)  to  some  Poetical  or  Philosophical,  or  Legislative 


SCHMELZLE'S  JOURNEY  TO  FLAETZ.   317 

road,  partly  that  I  might  still  see  her,  so  long  as  life  and 
eyes  endured ;  partly  that,  even  at  the  smallest  danger  to 
her,  be  it  a  great,  or  even  all-over-sweeping  Deluge  and 
World's-doom,  I  might  die,  if  not  for  her,  at  least  hy  her, 
and  so,  united  with  that  stanch,  true  heart,  cast  away  a 
plagued  and  plaguing  life,  in  which,  at  any  rate,  not  half 
of  my  wishes  for  her  have  been  fulfilled. 

So  then  were  my  Journey  over  —  crowned  with  some 
Historiola  ;  and  in  time  coming,  perhaps,  still  more  re- 
warded through  you,  ye  Friends  about  Flatz,  if  in  these 
pages  you  shall  find  any  well-ground  pruning-knives, 
whereby  you  may  more  readily  outroot  the  weedy  tangle 
of  Lies,  which  for  the  present  excludes  me  from  the  gal- 
lant Schabacker  —  Only  this  cursed  Ferment  still  sits  in 
my  head.  Farewell,  then,  so  long  as  there  are  Atmos- 
pheres left  us  to  breathe.  I  wish  I  had  that  Ferment 
out  of  my  head.  Yours  always, 

Attila  Schmelzle. 

P.  S.  —  My  brother-in-law  has  kept  his  promise  well, 
and  Berga  is  dancing.     Particulars  in  my  next ! 

polisher,  that  so  the  little  elf  may  have  something  to  be  shaping  and 
manufacturing  beside  its  mother.  And  when  the  other  young  ones 
get  a  taste  of  sisterkin's  baking,  they  all  clap  hands,  and  cv^,  "Aha, 
Mother  !  canst  bake  like  Sulcy  here?  " 


An 


ALECTS  FROM 


Rich 


TER, 


TRANSLATED   BY 


THOMAS    DE    QUINCEY. 


ANALECTS    FROM    RICHTER. 


THE   HAPPY   LIFE   OF  A   PARISH   PRIEST   IN 
SWEDEN. 


WEDEN  apart,  the  condition  of  a  parish  priest 
is  in  itself  sufficiently  happy  :  in  Sweden,  then, 
much  more  so.  There  he  enjoys  summer  and 
winter  pure  and  unalloyed  by  any  tedious  in- 
terruptions :  a  Swedish  spring,  which  is  always  a  late  one, 
is  no  repetition,  in  a  lower  key,  of  the  harshness  of  winter, 
but  anticipates,  and  is  a  prelibation  of,  perfect  summer,  — 
laden  with  blossoms,  —  radiant  with  the  lily  and  the  rose  : 
insomuch,  that  a  Swedish  summer  night  represents  im- 
plicitly one  half  of  Italy,  and  a  winter  night  one  half  of 
the  world  beside. 

I  will  begin  with  winter,  and  I  will  suppose  it  to  be 
Christmas.  The  priest,  whom  we  shall  imagine  to  be  a 
German,  and  summoned  from  the  southern  climate  of 
Germany  upon  presentation  to  the  church  of  a  Swedish 
hamlet  lying  in  a  high  polar  latitude,  rises  in  cheerfulness 
about  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning  ;  and  till  half  past 
nine  he  burns  his  lamp.  At  nine  o'clock,  the  stars  are 
still  shining,  and  the  unclouded  moon  even  yet  longer. 
This  prolongation  of  star-light  into  the  forenoon  is  to  him 
delightful ;  for  he  is  a  German,  and  has  a  sense  of  some- 
14*  u 


322  ANALECTS    FEOM    RICHTER. 

thing  marvellous  in  a  starry  forenoon.  Methinks,  I  be- 
hold the  priest  and  his  flock  moving  towards  the  church 
with  lanterns  :  the  lights  dispersed  amongst  the  crowd 
connect  the  congregation  into  the  appearance  of  some 
domestic  group  or  larger  household,  and  carry  the  priest 
back  to  his  childish  years  during  the  winter  season  and 
Christmas  matins,  when  every  hand  bore  its  candle.  Ar- 
rived at  the  pulpit,  he  declares  to  his  audience  the  plain 
truth,  word  for  word,  as  it  stands  in  the  Gospel :  in  the 
presence  of  God,  all  intellectual  pretensions  are  called 
upon  to  be  silent ;  the  very  reason  ceases  to  be  reason- 
able ;  nor  is  anything  reasonable  in  the  sight  of  God  but 
a  sincere  and  upright  heart. 

Just  as  he  and  his  flock  are  issuing  from  the  church 
the  bright  Christmas  sun  ascends  above  the  horizon,  and 

shoots  his  beams  upon  their  faces.  The  old  men,  who  ai'e 
numerous  in  Sweden,  are  all  tinged  with  the  colors  of 
youth  by  the  rosy  morning-lustre  ;  and  the  priest,  as  he 
looks  away  from  them  to  mother  earth  lying  in  the  sleep 
of  winter,  and  to  the  churchyard,  where  the  flowers  and 
the  men  are  all  in  their  graves  together,  might  secretly  ex- 
claim with  the  poet :  '*  Upon  the  dead  mother,  in  peace 
and  utter  gloom,  are  reposing  the  dead  children.  After  a 
time,  uprises  the  everlasting  sun  ;  and  the  mother  starts  up 
at  the  summons  of  the  heavenly  dawn  with  a  resurrection 
of  her  ancient  bloom :  —  And  her  children  ?  —  Yes :  but 
they  must  wait  awhile." 

At  home  he  is  awaited  by  a  warm  study,  and  a  •'  long- 
levelled  rule  "  of  sunlight  upon  the  book-clad  wall. 

The  afternoon  he  spends  delightfully  ;  for,  having 
before  him  such  perfect  flower-stand  of  pleasures,  he 
scarcely  knows  where  he  should  settle.     Supposing  it  to 


ANALECTS    FROM    RICHTER.  323 

be  Christmas-day,  he  preaches  again :  he  preaches  on  a 
subject  which  calls  up  images  of  the  beauteous  eastern- 
land,  or  of  eternity.  By  this  time,  twilight  and  gloom 
prevailed  through  the  church ;  only  a  couple  of  wax- 
lights  upon  the  altar  throw  wondrous  and  mighty  shadows 
through  the  aisles :  the  angel  that  hangs  down  from  the 
roof  above  the  baptismal  font  is  awoke  into  a  solemn  life 
by  the  shadows  and  the  rays,  and  seems  almost  in  the  act 
of  ascension  :  through  the  windows,  the  stars  or  the  moon 
are  beginning  to  peer :  aloft,  in  the  pulpit,  which  is  now 
hid  in  gloom,  the  priest  is  inflamed  and  possessed  by  the 
sacred  burden  of  glad  tidings  which  he  is  announcing: 
he  is  lost  and  insensible  to  all  besides ;  and  from  amidst 
the  darkness  which  surrounds  him,  he  pours  down  his 
thunders,  with  tears  and  agitation,  reasoning  of  future 
worlds,  and  of  the  heaven  of  heavens,  and  whatsoever 
else  can  most  powerfully  shake  the  heart  and  the  affec- 
tions. 

Descending  from  his  pulpit  in  these  holy  fervors,  he 
now,  perhaps,  takes  a  walk  :  it  is  about  four  o'clock  :  and 
he  walks  beneath  a  sky  lit  up  by  the  shifting  northern 
lights,  that  to  his  eye  appear  but  an  Aurora  striking  up- 
wards from  the  eternal  morning  of  the  south,  or  as  a 
forest  composed  of  saintly  thickets,  like  the  fiery  bushes 
of  Moses,  that  are  round  the  throne  of  God. 

Thus,  if  it  be  the  afternoon  of  Christmas-day :  but  if 
it  be  any  other  afternoon,  visitors,  perhaps,  come  and 
bring  their  well-bred,  grown-up  daughters ;  like  the  fash- 
ionable world  in  London,  he  dines  at  sunset;  that  is  to 
say,  like  the  w?i-fashionable  world  of  London,  he  dines  at 
two  o'clock  ;  and  he  drinks  coffee  by  moonlight ;  and  the 
parsonage-house  becomes  an  enchanted  palace  of  pleasure 
gleaming  with  twilight,  starlight,  and  moonlight.    Or,  per- 


324  ANALECTS    FROM    RICHTER. 

haps,  he  goes  over  to  the  schoohiiaster,  who  is  teaching 
his  afternoon  school :  there  by  the  candlelight,  he  gathers 
round  his  knees  all  the  scholars,  as  if —  being  the  children 
of  his  spiritual  children  —  they  must  therefore  be  his  own 
grandchildren ;  and  with  delightful  words  he  wins  their 
attention,  and  pours  knowledge  into  their  docile  hearts. 

All  these  pleasures  failing,  he  may  pace  up  and  down 
in  his  library,  already,  by  three  o'clock,  gloomy  with  twi- 
light, but  fitfully  enlivened  by  a  glowing  fire,  and  steadily 
by  the  bright  moonlight ;  and  he  needs  do  no  more  than 
ta^te  at  every  turn  of  his  walk  a  little  orange  marmalade, 
—  to  call  up  images  of  beautiful  Italy,  and  its  gardens 
and  orange  groves,  before  all  his  five  senses,  and  as  it 
were  to  the  very  tip  of  his  tongue.  Looking  at  the 
moon,  he  will  not  fail  to  recollect  that  the  very  same  sil- 
ver disk  hangs  at  the  very  same  moment  between  the 
branches  of  the  laurels  in  Italy.  It  will  delight  him  to 
consider  that  the  ^olian  harp,  and  the  lark,  and  indeed 
music  of  all  kinds,  and  the  stars,  and  children,  are  just 
the  same  in  hot  climates  and  in  cold.  And  when  the 
post-boy,  that  rides  in  with  news  from  Italy,  winds  his 
horn  through  the  hamlet,  and  with  a  few  simple  notes 
raises  up  on  the  frozen  window  of  his  study  a  vision  of 
flowery  realms  ;  and  when  he  plays  with  treasured  leaves 
of  roses  and  of  lilies  from  some  departed  summer,  or  with 
plumes  of  a  bird  of  paradise,  the  memorial  of  some  dis- 
tant friend  ;  when,  further,  his  heart  is  moved  by  the  mag- 
nificent sounds  of  Lady-day,  Salad-season,  Cherry-time, 
Trinity-Sundays,  the  rose  of  June,  &c.,  how  can  he  fail 
to  forget  that  he  is  in  Sweden  by  the  time  that  his  lamp 
is  brought  in  ;  and  then,  indeed,  he  will  be  somewhat  dis- 
concerted to  recognize  his  study  in  what  had  now  shaped 
itself  to  his  fancy  as  a  room  in  some  foreign  land.     How- 


ANALECTS    FROM    RICHTER.  325 

ever,  if  he  would  pursue  this  airy  creation,  he  need  but 
light  at  his  lamp  a  wax-candle-end,  to  gain  a  glimpse 
through  the  whole  evening  into  that  world  of  fashion  and 
splendor,  from  which  he  purchased  the  said  wax-candle- 
end.  For  I  should  suppose,  that  at  the  court  of  Stock- 
holm, as  elsewhere,  there  must  be  candle-ends  to  be 
bought  of  the  state-footmen. 

But  now,  after  the  lapse  of  half  a  year,  all  at  once 
there  strikes  upon  his  heart  something  more  beautiful 
than  Italy,  where  the  sun  sets  so  much  earlier  in  summer- 
time than  it  does  at  our  Swedish  hamlet :  and  what  is 
that  ?  It  is  the  longest  day,  with  the  rich  freight  that  it 
carries  in  its  bosom,  and  leading  by  the  hand  the  early 
dawn  blushing  with  rosy  light,  and  melodious  with  the 
carolling  of  larks  at  one  o'clock  in  the  morning.  Before 
two,  that  is,  at  sunrise,  the  elegant  party  that  we  men- 
tioned last  winter  arrive  in  gay  clothing  at  the  parsonage  ; 
for  they  are  bound  on  a  little  excursion  of  pleasure  in 
company  with  the  priest.  At  two  o'clock  they  are  in 
motion  ;  at  which  time  all  the  flowers  are  glittering,  and 
the  forests  are  gleaming  with  the  mighty  light.  The  warm 
sun  threatens  them  with  no  storm  nor  thunder-showers  ; 
for  both  are  rare  in  Sweden.  The  priest,  in  common 
with  the  rest  of  the  company,  is  attired  in  the  costume  of 
Sweden  ;  he  wears  his  short  jacket  with  a  broad  scarf,  his 
short  cloak  above  that,  his  round  hat  with  floating  plumes, 
and  shoes  tied  with  bright  ribbons :  hke  the  rest  of  the 
men,  he  resembles  a  Spanish  knight,  or  a  Provencal,  or 
other  man  of  the  south  :  more  especially  when  he  and 
his  gay  company  are  seen  flying  through  the  lofty  foliage 
luxuriant  with  blossom,  that  within  so  short  a  period  of 
weeks  has  shot  forth  from  the  garden  plots  and  the  naked 
boughs. 


26  ANALECTS    FROM    KICHTER. 


That  a  longest  day  like  this,  bearing  such  a  cornucopia 
of  sunshine,  of  cloudless  ether,  of  buds  and  bells,  of  blos- 
soms and  of  leisure,  should  pass  away  more  rapidly  than 
the  shortest,  —  is  not  difficult  to  suppose.  As  early  a3 
eight  o'clock  in  the  evening  the  party  breaks  up ;  the  sun 
is  now  burning  more  gently  over  the  half-closed  sleepy 
tlowers  :  about  nine  he  has  mitigated  his  rays,  and  is 
beheld  bathing  as  it  were  naked  in  the  blue  depths  of 
heiiven :  about  ten,  at  which  hour  the  comp;\uy  reassem- 
ble at  the  parsonage,  the  priest  is  deeply  moved,  for 
throughout  the  hamlet,  though  the  tepid  sun,  now  sunk  to 
the  horizon,  is  still  shedding  a  sullen  glow  upon  the  cot- 
tages and  the  window-panes,  everything  reposes  in  pro- 
foundest  silence  and  sleep  :  the  birds  even  ai*e  all  slimi- 
bering  in  the  golden  summits  of  the  woods  :  and  at  last, 
the  sohtaiy  sun  himself  sets,  hke  a  moon,  amidst  the 
universal  quiet  of  nature.  To  our  priest,  walking  in  his 
romantic  dress,  it  seems  as  though  rosy-colored  realms 
were  laid  open,  iu  which  fairies  and  spirits  range  :  and  he 
would  scarcely  feel  an  emotion  of  wonder,  if,  in  this  hour 
oi^  golden  vision,  his  brother,  who  ran  away  in  childhood, 
should  suddenly  present  himself  as  one  alighting  from 
some  blooming  heaven  of  enchantment. 

The  priest  will  not  allow  his  company  to  depart :  he 
detains  them  in  the  parsonage  garden.  —  where,  says  he, 
every  one  that  chooses  may  slumber  away  in  beautiful 
bowers  the  brief,  warm  hours  until  the  reappearance  of 
the  sun.  This  proposal  is  generally  adopted :  and  the 
garden  is  occupied :  many  a  lovely  pair  are  making  be- 
Heve  to  sleep,  but,  in  fact,  are  holding  each  other  by  the 
hand.  The  happy  priest  walks  up  and  down  through  the 
parterres.  Coolness  comes,  and  a  fev,-  stars.  His  night- 
violets  and  gillydowers  open  and  breathe  out  their  power- 


ANALECTS    FROM    RICHTER.  327 

ful  odors.  To  the  north,  from  the  eternal  morning  of  the 
pole,  exhales  as  it  were  a  golden  dawn.  The  priest  thinks 
of  the  village  of  his  childhood  far  away  in  Germany  ;  he 
thinks  of  the  life  of  man,  his  hopes,  and  his  aspirations : 
and  he  is  calm  and  at  peace  with  himself.  Then  all  at 
once  starts  up  the  morning  sun  in  his  freshness.  Some 
there  are  in  the  garden  who  would  fain  confound  it  with 
the  evening  sun,  and  close  their  eyes  again  :  but  the 
larks  betray  all,  and  awaken  every  sleeper  from  bower 
to  bower. 

Then  again  begin  pleasure  and  morning  in  their  pomp 
of  radiance  ;  and  almost  I  could  persuade  myself  to 
delineate  the  course  of  this  day  also,  though  it  differs 
from  its  predecessor  hardly  by  so  much  as  the  leaf  of  a 
rose-bud. 


DREAM    UPON    THE    UNIVERSE. 

I  HAD  been  reading  an  excellent  dissertation  of 
Kriiger's  upon  the  old  vulgar  error  which  regards 
the  space  from  one  earth  and  sun  to  another  as  empty. 
Our  sun  together  with  all  its  planets  fills  only  the 
31,419,460,000,000,000th  part  of  the  whole  space  be- 
tween itself  and  the  next  solar  body.  Gracious  Heavens ! 
thought  I,  —  in  what  an  unfathomable  abyss  of  emptiness 
were  this  universe  swallowed  up  and  lost,  if  all  were  void 
and  utter  vacuity  except  the  few  shining  points  of  dust 
which  we  call  a  planetary  system  !  To  conceive  of  our 
earthly  ocean  as  the  abode  of  death,  and  essentially  inca- 
pable of  life,  and  of  its  populous  islands  as  being  no 
greater  than  snail-shells,  would  be  a  far  less  error  in 
proportion  to  the  compass  of  our  planet  than  that  which 


328  ANALECTS    FKOil    RICHTER. 

attributes  emptiness  to  the  great  mundane  spaces  :  and 
the  error  would  be  tar  less  if  the  marine  animals  were  to 
ascribe  life  and  fulness  exclusively  to  the  sea,  and  to 
regard  the  atmospheric  oce:\n  above  them  as  empty  and 
untenanted.  According  to  Herschel.  the  most  remote  of 
the  galaxies  which  the  telescope  discovers  lie  at  such  a 
distivnce  from  us.  that  their  light,  which  reaches  us  at  this 
day,  must  have  set  out  on  its  journey  two  millions  of 
years  ago :  and  thus  by  optical  laws  it  is  possible  that 
whole  squadivns  of  the  starry  ho^ts  may  be  now  reaching 
us  with  their  beams  which  have  themselves  perished  ages 
ago.  Upon  this  scale  of  computation  for  the  dimensions 
of  the  world,  what  heights  and  depths  and  breadths  must 
there  be  in  this  universe  —  in  comparison  of  which  the 
positive  universe  would  be  itself  a  nihility,  were  it  crossed 
—  pierced  —  and  belted  about  by  so  iUimitable  a  wilder- 
ness of  nothing  I  But  is  it  possible  that  any  man  can  for 
a  moment  overlook  those  vast  forces  which  must  pervade 
these  imaginary-  deserts  with  eternal  surges  of  flux  and 
reflux,  to  make  the  very  paths  to  those  distant  starry 
coasts  voyageable  to  our  eyes  ^  Can  you  lock  up  in  a 
sun  or  in  its  planets  their  reciprocal  forces  of  attraction  ? 
Does  not  the  light  sn^eam  through  the  immeasurable 
spaces  between  our  earth  and  the  nebula  which  is  tarthest 
removed  from  us  ?  And  in  this  stream  of  light  there  is 
as  ample  an  existence  of  the  positive,  and  as  much  a  home 
for  the  abode  of  a  spiritual  world,  as  there  is  a  dwelling- 
place  for  thy  own  spirit  in  the  substance  of  the  brain. 
To  these  and  similar  reflections  succeeded  the  following 
dream  :  — 

Methought  my  body  sank  down  in  ruins,  and  my  inner 
form  stepped  out  apparelled  in  light :  and  by  my  side 
there  stood  another  form  which  resembled  my  own,  ex- 


ANALECTS    FROM    RICHTER.  329 

cept  that  it  did  not  shine  like  mine,  but  lightened  unceas- 
ingly. "  Two  thoughts,"  said  the  form,  "  are  the  wings 
with  which  I  move  ;  the  thought  of  Here^  and  the  thought 
of  There.  And  behold  !  I  am  yonder  "  ;  —  pointing  to  a 
distant  world.  "  Come,  then,  and  wait  on  me  with  thy 
thoughts  and  with  thy  flight,  that  I  may  show  to  thee  the 
universe  under  a  veil."  And  I  flew  along  with  the  Form. 
In  a  moment  our  earth  fell  back,  behind  our  consuming 
flight,  into  an  abyss  of  distance  ;  a  faint  gleam  only  was 
reflected  from  the  summits  of  the  Cordilleras  ;  and  a  few 
moments  more  reduced  the  sun  to  a  little  star  ;  and  soon 
there  remained  nothing  visible  of  our  system  except  a 
comet  which  was  travelHng  from  our  sun  with  angelic 
speed  in  the  direction  of  Sirius.  Our  flight  now  carried 
us  so  rapidly  through  the  flocks  of  solar  bodies  —  flocks, 
past  counting  unless  to  their  heavenly  Shepherd,  —  that 
scarcely  could  they  expand  themselves  before  us  into  the 
magnitude  of  moons,  before  they  sank  behind  us  into  pale 
nebular  gleams  ;  and  their  planetary  earths  could  not  re- 
veal themselves  for  a  moment  to  the  transcendent  rapidity 
of  our  course.  At  length  Sirius  and  all  the  brotherhood 
of  our  constellations  and  the  galaxy  of  our  heavens  stood 
far  below  our  feet  as  a  little  nebula  amongst  other  yet 
more  distant  nebulae.  Thus  we  flew  on  through  the  starry 
wildernesses :  one  heaven  after  another  unfurled  its  im- 
measurable banners  before  us,  and  then  rolled  up  behind 
us :  galaxy  behind  galaxy  towered  up  into  solemn  alti- 
tudes before  which  the  spirit  shuddered  ;  and  they  stood 
in  long  array  through  which  the  Infinite  Being  might 
pass  in  progress.  Sometimes  the  Form  that  lightened 
would  outfly  my  weary  thoughts  ;  and  then  it  would  be 
seen  far  off  before  me  like  a  coruscation  amongst  the  stars 
—  till  suddenly  I  thought  again  to  myself  the  thought  of 


330  ANALECTS    FROM    KICHTER. 

There,  and  then  I  was  at  it^;  side.  But,  as  we  were  thus 
swallowed  up  b_v  one  abyss  of  stars  after  another,  and  the 
heavens  above  our  eyes  were  not  emptier  —  neither  were 
the  heavens  below  them  fuller :  and  as  sims  without  in- 
termission fell  into  the  solar  ocean  like  water-spouts  of  a 
storm  which  fall  into  the  ocean  of  waters;  —  then  at 
length  the  human  heart  ^vithm  me  was  overburdened  and 
weary,  and  yearned  after  some  narrow  cell  or  quiet  ora- 
tory in  this  metropoli:an  cathedral  of  the  universe.  And 
I  said  to  the  Form  at  my  side,  "  0  Spirit  I  has  then 
this  universe  no  end  ? "  And  the  Form  answered  and 
said,  "  Lo  !  it  has  no  beginning.*' 

Suddenly,  however,  the  heavens  above  us  appeared  to 
be  emptied,  and  not  a  star  was  seen  to  twinkle  in  the 
mighty  abyss,  —  no  gleam  of  light  to  break  the  unity  of 
the  infinite  darkness.  The  starry  hosts  behind  us  had  all 
contracted  into  an  obscure  nebula:  and  at  length  that 
also  had  vanished.  And  I  thought  to  myself,  "  At  last 
the  universe  has  ended  " :  and  I  trembled  at  the  thought 
of  the  illimitable  dungeon  of  pure.  —  pure  darkness  which 
here  began  to  imprison  the  creation :  I  shuddered  at  the 
dead  sea  of  nothing,  in  whose  unfathomable  zone  of 
blackness  the  jewel  of  the  glittering  universe  seemed  to 
be  set  and  buried  forever  ;  and  through  the  night  in  which 
we  moved  I  saw  the  Form  which  still  lightened  as  before, 
but  left  all  around  it  unilluminated.  Then  the  Form  said 
to  me  in  my  anguish,  ••  O  creature  of  Httle  faith ! 
Look  up !  the  most  ancient  light  is  coming ! "  I  looked ; 
and  in  a  moment  came  a  twihght.  —  in  the  twinkling  of  an 
eye  a  galaxy.  —  and  then  with  a  choral  burst  rushed  in 
all  the  company  of  stars.  For  centuries  gray  with  age, 
for  millennia  hoary  with  antiquity,  had  the  starry  light 
been  on  its  road  to  us :  and  at  length  out  of  heights  inac- 


ANALECTS    FROM    RICTHER.  331 

cessible  to  thought  it  had  reached  us.  Now  then,  as 
through  some  renovated  century,  we  flew  through  new 
cycles  of  heavens.  At  length  again  came  a  starless  in- 
terval ;  and  far  longer  it  endured,  before  the  beams  of  a 
starry  host  again  had  reached  us. 

As  we  thus  advanced  forever  through  an  interchange 
of  nights  and  solar  heavens,  and  as  the  interval  grew  still 
longer  and  longer  before  the  last  heaven  we  had  quitted 
contracted  to  a  point,  —  and  as  once  we  issued  suddenly 
from  the  middle  of  thickest  night  into  an  Aurora  Borealis, 

—  the  herald  of  an  expiring  world,  and  we  found  through- 
out this  cycle  of  solar  systems  that  a  day  of  judgment  had 
indeed  arrived ;  the  suns  had  sickened,  and  the  planets 
were  heaving  —  rocking,  yawning  in  convulsions,  the  sub- 
terraneous waters  of  the  great  deeps  were  breaking  up, 
and  lightnings  that  were  ten  diameters  of  a  world  in 
length  ran  along  —  from  east  to  west  —  from  Zenith  to 
Nadir ;  and  here  and  there,  where  a  sun  should  have 
been,  we  saw  instead  through  the  misty  vapor  a  gloomy 

—  ashy  —  leaden  corpse  of  a  solar  body,  that  sucked  in 
flames  from  the  perishing  world  —  but  gave  out  neither 
light  nor  heat ;  and  as  I  saw,  through  a  vista  which  had 
no  end,  mountain  towering  above  mountain,  and  piled  up 
with  what  seemed  glittering  snow  from  the  conflict  of  solar 
and  planetary  bodies ;  —  then  my  spirit  bent  under  the 
load  of  the  universe,  and  I  said  to  the  Form,  "  Rest,  rest : 
and  lead  me  no  farther  :  I  am  too  solitary  in  the  creation 
itself ;  and  in  its  deserts  yet  more  so :  the  full  world  is 
great,  but  the  empty  world  is  greater ;  and  with  the 
universe  increase  its  Zaarahs." 

Then  the  Form  touched  me  like  the  flowing  of  a 
breath,  and  spoke  more  gently  than  before  :  "  In  the 
presence  of  God  there  is  no   emptiness :   above,  below, 


332  ANALECTS    FROM    RICHTER. 

between,  and  round  about  the  stars,  in  the  darkness  and 
in  the  hght,  dwelleth  the  true  and  very  Universe,  the  sum 
and  fountain  of  all  that  is.  But  thj  spirit  can  bear  only- 
earthly  images  of  the  unearthly  ;  now  then  I  cleanse  thy 
sight  with  euphrasy ;  look  forth,  and  behold  the  images." 
Immediately  my  eyes  were  opened  ;  and  I  looked,  and  I 
saw  as  it  were  an  interminable  sea  of  light,  —  sea  immeas- 
urable, sea  unfathomable,  sea  without  a  shore.  All  spaces 
between  all  heavens  were  filled  with  happiest  light :  and 
there  was  a  thundering  of  floods  :  and  there  were  seas 
above  the  seas,  and  seas  below  the  seas :  and  I  saw  all 
the  trackless  regions  that  we  had  voyaged  over  :  and  my 
eye  comprehended  the  farthest  and  the  nearest :  and  dark- 
ness had  become  hght,  and  the  hght  darkness :  for  the 
deserts  and  wastes  of  the  creation  were  now  filled  with 
the  sea  of  lightj  and  in  this  sea  the  suns  floated  like  ash- 
gray  blossoms,  and  the  planets  hke  black  grains  of  seed. 
Then  my  heart  comprehended  that  immortality  dwelled 
in  the  spaces  between  the  worlds,  and  death  only  amongst 
the  worlds.  Upon  all  the  suns  there  walked  upright 
shadows  in  the  form  of  men  :  but  they  were  glorified 
when  they  quitted  these  perishable  worlds,  and  when  they 
sank  into  the  sea  of  light :  and  the  murky  planets,  I  per- 
ceived, were  but  cradles  for  the  infant  spirits  of  the  uni- 
verse of  light.  In  the  Zaarahs  of  the  creation  I  saw  —  I 
heard  —  I  felt  —  the  glittering  —  the  echoing  —  the  breath- 
ing of  life  and  creative  power.  The  suns  were  but  as  spin- 
ning-wheels, the  planets  no  more  than  weavers'  shuttles, 
in  relation  to  the  infinite  web  which  composes  the  veil  of 
Isis ;  which  veil  is  hung  over  the  whole  creation,  and 
lengthens  as  any  finite  being  attempts  to  raise  it.  And  in 
sight  of  this  immeasurability  of  life,  no  sadness  could  en- 
dure ;  but  only  joy  that  knew  no  limit,  and  happy  prayers. 


ANALECTS    FROM    RICHTER,  333 

But  in  the  midst  of  this  great  vision  of  the  Universe 
the  Form  that  hghtened  eternally  had  become  invisible, 
or  had  vanished  to  its  home  in  the  unseen  world  of  spirits  : 
I  was  left  alone  in  the  centre  of  a  universe  of  life,  and  I 
yearned  after  some  sympathizing  being.  Suddenly  from 
the  starry  deeps  there  came  floating  through  the  ocean  of 
light  a  planetary  body ;  and  upon  it  there  stood  a  woman 
whose  face  was  as  the  face  of  a  Madonna ;  and  by  her 
side  there  stood  a  child,  whose  countenance  varied  not  — 
neither  was  it  magnified  as  he  drew  nearer.  This  child 
was  a  king,  for  I  saw  that  he  had  a  crown  upon  his  head : 
but  the  crown  was  a  crown  of  thorns.  Then  also  I  per- 
ceived that  the  planetary  body  was  our  unhappy  earth : 
and,  as  the  earth  drew  near,  this  child  who  had  come 
forth  from  the  starry  deeps  to  comfort  me  threw  upon  me 
a  look  of  gentlest  pity  and  of  unutterable  love  —  so  that 
in  my  heart  I  had  a  sudden  rapture  of  joy  such  as  passes 
all  understanding ;  and  I  awoke  in  the  tumult  of  my  hap- 
piness. 

I  awoke :  but  my  happiness  survived  my  dream  :  and 
I  exclaimed,  O  how  beautiful  is  death,  seeing  that 
we  die  in  a  world  of  life  and  of  creation  without  end ! 
and  I  blessed  God  for  my  life  upon  earth,  but  much  more 
for  the  life  in  those  unseen  depths  of  the  universe  which 
are  emptied  of  all  but  the  Supreme  Reality,  and  where 
no  earthly  Ufe  nor  perishable  hope  can  enter. 


COMPLAINT   OF   THE    BIRD    IN   A   DARKENED 
CAGE. 

«    A    H !  "  said  the  imprisoned  bird,  "  how  unhappy  were 

Jr\.  I  in    my  eternal  night,  but  for  those   melodious 

tones  which  sometimes  make  their  way  to  me  like  beams 


334  ANALECTS    FROM    RICHTER. 

of  light  from  afar,  and  cheer  my  gloomy  day.  Cut  I  will 
myself  repeat  these  heavenly  melodies  like  an  echo,  until 
I  have  stamped  them  in  my  heart ;  and  then  I  shall  be 
able  to  bring  comfort  to  myself  in  my  darkness !  "  Thus 
spoke  the  little  warbler,  and  soon  had  learned  the  sweet 
airs  that  were  sung  to  it  with  voice  and  instrument.  That 
done,  the  curtain  was  raised  ;  for  the  darkness  had  been 
purposely  contrived  to  assist  in  its  instruction.  0  man  ! 
how  often  dost  thou  complain  of  overshadowing  grief  and 
of  darkness  resting  upon  thy  days  !  And  yet  what  cause 
for  complaint,  unless  indeed  thou  hast  failed  to  learn  wis- 
dom from  suffering  ?  For  is  not  the  whole  sum  of  human 
life  a  veiling  and  an  obscuring  of  the  immortal  spirit  of 
man  ?  Then  first,  when  the  fleshly  curtain  falls  away, 
may  it  soar  upwards  into  a  region  of  happier  melodies ! 


ON  THE  DEATH  OF  YOUNG  CHILDREN. 

EPHEMERA  die  all  at  sunset,  and  no  insect  of  this 
class  has  ever  sported  in  the  beams  of  the  morn- 
ing sun.  Happier  are  ye,  little  human  ephemera !  Ye 
played  only  in  the  ascending  beams,  and  in  the  early 
dawn,  and  in  the  eastern  light ;  ye  drank  only  of  the  pre- 
libations  of  life  ;  hovered  for  a  little  space  over  a  world 
of  freshness  and  of  blossoms  ;  and  fell  asleep  in  innocence 
before  yet  the  morning  dew  w^as  exhaled ! 


THE   PROPHETIC   DEW-DROPS. 

A  DELICATE  child,  pale  and  prematurely  wise,  was 
complaining  on  a  hot  morning  that  the  poor  dew- 
drops  had  been  too  hastily  snatched  away  and  not  al- 


ANALECTS    FEOM    RICHTER.  335 

lowed  to  glitter  on  the  flowers  like  other  happier  dew- 
drops  that  live  the  whole  night  through  and  sparkle 
in  the  moonlight,  and  through  the  morning  onwards 
to  noonday :  "  The  sun,"  said  the  child,  "  has  chased 
them  away  with  his  heat  —  or  swallowed  them  in  his 
wrath."  Soon  after  came  rain  and  a  rainbow;  where- 
upon his  father  pointed  upwards :  "  See  "  said  he,  "  there 
stand  thy  dew-drops  gloriously  re-set  —  a  ghttering  jew- 
elry —  in  the  heavens  ;  and  the  clownish  foot  tramples  on 
them  no  more.  By  this,  my  child,  thou  art  taught  that 
what  withers  upon  earth  blooms  again  in  heaven."  Thus 
the  father  spoke,  and  knew  not  that  he  spoke  prefiguring 
words  :  for  soon  after  the  delicate  child,  with  the  morning 
brightness  of  his  early  wisdom,  was  exhaled,  like  a  dew-- 
drop, into  heaven. 


ON    DEATH. 

WE  should  all  think  of  death  as  a  less  hideous  ob- 
ject, if  it  simply  untenanted  our  bodies  of  a  spirit, 
without  corrupting  them ;  secondly,  if  the  grief  which  we 
experience  at  the  spectacle  of  our  friends'  graves  were 
not  by  some  confusion  of  the  mind  blended  with  the  im- 
age of  our  own  ;  thirdly,  if  we  had  not  in  this  life  seated 
ourselves  in  a  warm  domestic  nest,  which  we  are  unwill- 
ing to  quit  for  the  cold  blue  regions  of  the  unfathomable 
heavens  ;  finally,  —  if  death  were  denied  to  us.  Once  in 
dreams  I  saw  a  human  being  of  heavenly  intellectual 
faculties,  and  his  aspirations  were  heavenly ;  but  he  was 
chained  (methought)  eternally  to  the  earth.  The  immor- 
tal old  man  had  five  great  wounds  in  his  happiness  —  five 
worms  that  gnawed  forever  at  his  heart :  he  was  unhappy 
in  springtime,  because  that  is  a  season  of  hope  —  and  rich 


336  ANALECTS    FROM    RICHTER. 

with  phnutoms  of  far  happier  days  thau  any  which  this 
aceldama  of  earth  can  reahze.  He  was  unhappy  at  the 
sound  of  music,  which  dilates  the  heai-t  of  man  into  ita 
whole  capacity  tor  the  infinite,  and  he  cried  aloud,  — 
'•  Away,  away  I  Thou  speakest  of  things  which  through- 
out my  endless  lite  I  have  found  not,  and  shall  not  find  !  " 
He  was  unhappy  at  the  remembrance  of  earthly  affections 
and  dissevered  hearts :  for  love  is  a  plant  which  may  bud 
in  this  life,  but  it  must  flourish  in  another.  He  was  un- 
happy under  the  glorious  spectacle  of  the  starry  host,  and 
ejaculated  forever  m  his  heart,  — "  So  then  I  am  parted 
from  you  to  all  eternity  by  an  impassable  abyss :  the  great 
universe  of  suns  is  above,  below,  and  round  about  me  : 
but  I  am  chained  to  a  little  ball  of  dust  and  ashes."  He 
was  unhappy  before  the  great  ideas  of  Virtue  —  of  Truth 
—  and  of  God ;  because  he  knew  how  feeble  are  the  ap- 
proximations to  them  which  a  son  of  earth  can  make. 
But  this  was  a  dream :  God  be  thanked,  that  in  reahty 
there  is  no  such  craving  and  asking  eye  directed  upwards 
to  heaven  —  to  which  death  will  not  one  day  bring  an 


1 


IMAGIXATIOX    UNTAMED    BY    THE    COARSER 
REALITIES    OF    LIFE. 

HAPPY  is  every  actor  in  the  guilty  drama  of  life, 
to  whom  the  higher  illusion  within  supplies  or 
conceals  the  external  illusion  ;  to  whom,  in  the  tumult  of 
his  part  and  its  intellectual  interest,  the  bunghng  land- 
scapes of  the  stage  have  the  bloom  and  reaUty  of  nature, 
and  whom  the  loud  parting  and  shocking  of  the  scenes 
disturb  not  in  his  dream  I 


I 


I 


ANALECTS    FKOM    RICHTER.  337 

SATIRICAL   NOTICE    OF    REVIEWERS. 

IN  Swabia,  in  Saxony,  in  Pomerania,  are  towns  in 
which  are  stationed  a  strange  sort  of  officers,  —  val- 
uers of  author's  flesh,  something  like  our  old  market- 
lookers  in  this  town.  They  are  commonly  called  tasters 
(or  Prmgustatores)  because  they  eat  a  mouthful  of  every 
book  beforehand,  and  tell  the  people  whether  its  flavor  be 
good.  We'  authors,  in  spite,  call  them  reviewers :  but  I 
believe  an  action  of  defamation  would  lie  against  us  for 
such  bad  words.  The  tasters  write  no  books  themselves  ; 
consequently  they  have  the  more  time  to  look  over  and 
tax  those  of  other  people.  Or,  if  they  do  sometimes 
write  books,  they  are  bad  ones  :  which  again  is  very  ad- 
vantageous to  them :  for  who  can  understand  the  theory 
of  badness  in  other  people's  books  so  well  as  those  who 
have  learned  it  by  practice  in  their  own  ?  They  are  re- 
puted the  guardians  of  literature  and  the  literati  for  the 
same  reason  that  St.  Nepomuk  is  the  patron  saint  of 
bridges  and  of  all  who  pass  over  them,  —  namely,  because 
he  himself  once  lost  his  life  from  a  bridge. 


FEMALE    TONGUES. 

HIPPEL,  the  author  of  the  book  "  Upon  Marriage," 
says,  "  A  woman,  that  does  not  talk,  must  be  a 
stupid  woman."  But  Hippel  is  an  author  whose  opinions 
it  is  more  safe  to  admire  than  to  adopt.  The  most  intel- 
ligent women  are  often  silent  amongst  women  ;  and  again 
the  most  stupid  and  the  most  silent  are  often  neither 
one  nor  the  other  except  amongst  men.  In  general  the 
current  remark  upon  men  is  valid  also  with  respect  to 
15  v 


338  ANALECTS    FROM    RICHTER. 

women,  —  that  those  for  the  most  part  are  the  greatest 
thinkers  who  are  the  least  talkers  ;  as  frogs  cease  to 
croak  when  light  is  brought  to  the  w^ater  edge.  However, 
in  fact,  the  disproportionate  talking  of  women  arises  out 
of  the  sedentariness  of  their  labors  :  sedentary  artisans,  — ^ 
as  tailors,  shoemakers,  weavers,  —  have  this  habit  as  well 
as  hypochondriacal  tendencies  in  common  with  women. 
Apes  do  not  talk,  as  savages  say,  that  they  may  not  be 
set  to  w^ork :  but  women  often  talk  double  their  share  — 
even  because  they  work. 


FORGIVENESS. 

NOTHING  is  more  moving  to  man  than  the  spec- 
tacle of  reconciliation  :  our  weaknesses  are  thus 
indemnified,  and  are  not  too  costly  —  being  the  price  we 
pay  for  the  hour  of  forgiveness :  and  the  archangel,  who 
has  never  felt  anger,  has  reason  to  envy  the  man  w^ho 
subdues  it.  When  thou  forgivest,  —  the  man,  who  has 
pierced  thy  heart,  stands  to  thee  in  the  relation  of  the 
sea-worm  that  perforates  the  shell  of  the  muscle,  which 
straightway  closes  the  wound  with  a  pearl. 


THE  graves  of  the  best  of  men,  of  the  noblest  martyrs, 
are  like  the  graves  of  the  Herrnhuters  (the  Moravian 
brethren)  —  level,  and  undistinguishable  from  the  univer- 
sal earth :  and,  if  the  earth  could  give  up  her  secrets,  our 
whole  globe  would  appear  a  Westminster  Abbey  laid  flat. 
Ah !  what  a  multitude  of  tears,  what  myriads  of  bloody 
drops  have  been  shed  in  secrecy  about  the  three  corner- 
trees  of  earth,  —  the  tree  of  life,  the  tree  of  knowledge, 


ANALECTS    FROM    RICHTER.  339 

and  the  tree  of  freedom,  —  shed,  but  never  reckoned  !  It 
is  only  great  periods  of  calamity  that  reveal  to  us  our 
great  men,  as  comets  are  revealed  by  total  eclipses  of 
the  sun.  Not  merely  upon  the  field  of  battle,  but  also 
upon  the  consecrated  soil  of  virtue  —  and  upon  the  classic 
ground  of  truth,  thousands  of  nameless  heroes  must  fall 
and  struggle  to  build  up  the  footstool  from  which  history 
surveys  the  one  hero,  whose  name  is  embalmed,  bleeding 
—  conquering  —  and  resplendent.  The  grandest  of  he- 
roic deeds  are  those  which  are  performed  within  four  walls 
and  in  domestic  privacy.  And,  because  history  records 
only  the  self-sacrifices  of  the  male  sex,  and  because  she 
dips  her  pen  only  in  blood,  —  therefore  is  it  that  in  the 
eyes  of  the  unseen  spirit  of  the  world  our  annals  appear 
doubtless  far  more  beautiful  and  noble  than  in  our  own. 


THE  GRANDEUR  OF  MAN  IN  HIS  LITTLENESS. 

MAN  upon  this  earth  would  be  vanity  and  hollow- 
ness,  dust  and  ashes,  vapor  and  a  bubble,  —  were 
it  not  that  he  felt  himself  to  be  so.  That  it  is  possible 
for  him  to  harbor  such  a  feeling,  —  this,  by  implying  a 
comparison  of  himself  with  something  higher  in  himself, 
this  is  it  which  makes  him  the  immortal  creature  that 
he  is. 


NIGHT. 

THE  earth  is  every  day  overspread  with  the  veil  of 
night  for  the  same  reason  as  the  cages  of  birds  are 
darkened,  —  namely,  that  we  may  the  more  readily  appre- 
hend the  higher  harmonies  of  thought  in  the  hush  and 


340  ANALECTS    FROM    RICHTER. 

quiet  of  darkness.  Thoughts,  which  day  turns  into  smoke 
and  mist,  stand  about  us  in  the  night  as  lights  and  flames : 
even  as  the  column  which  fluctuates  above  the  crater  of 
Vesuvius,  in  the  daytime  appears  a  pillar  of  cloud,  but 
by  night  a  pillar  of  fire. 


THE    STARS. 

LOOK  up,  and  behold  the  eternal  fields  of  light  that 
lie  round  about  the  throne  of  God.  Had  no  star 
ever  appeared  in  the  heavens,  to  man  there  would  have 
been  no  heavens ;  and  he  would  have  laid  himself  down 
to  his  last  sleep,  in  a  spirit  of  anguish,  as  upon  a  gloomy 
earth  vaulted  over  by  a  material  arch  —  solid  and  imper- 


MARTYRDOM. 

TO  die  for  the  truth  —  is  not  to  die  for  one's  country, 
but  to  die  for  the  world.  Truth,  like  the  Venus 
dei  Medici,  will  pass  down  in  thirty  fragments  to  poster- 
ity :  but  posterity  will  collect  and  recompose  them  into  a 
goddess.  Then  also  thy  temple,  O  eternal  Truth  !  that 
now  stands  half  below  the  earth  —  made  hollow  by  the 
sepulchres  of  its  witnesses,  will  raise  itself  in  the  total 
majesty  of  its  proportions  ;  and  will  stand  in  monumental 
granite  ;  and  every  pillar  on  which  it  rests  will  be  fixed 
in  the  grave  of  a  martyr. 


w 


THE    QUARRELS    OF   FRIENDS. 

HY  is  it  that  the  most  fervent  love  becomes  more 
fervent  by  brief  interruption  and  reconciliation  ? 


ANALECTS    FROM    BICHTER.  341 

and  why  must  a  storm  agitate  our  affections  before  they 
can  raise  the  highest  rainbow  of  peace  ?  Ah !  for  this 
reason  it  is  —  because  all  passions  feel  their  object  to  be 
as  eternal  as  themselves,  and  no  love  can  admit  the  feel- 
ing that  the  beloved  object  should  die.  And  under  this 
feeling  of  imperishableness  it  is  that  we  hard  fields  of  ice 
shock  together  so  harshly,  whilst  all  the  while  under  the 
sunbeams  of  a  little  space  of  seventy  years  we  are  rapidly 
dissolving. 


DREAMING. 

BUT  for  dreams,  that  lay  Mosaic  worlds  tessellated 
with  flowers  and  jewels  before  the  bhnd  sleeper,  and 
surround  the  recumbent  living  with  the  figures  of  the 
dead  in  the  upright  attitude  of  life,  the  time  would  be  too 
long  before  we  are  allowed  to  rejoin  our  brothers,  parents, 
friends :  every  year  we  should  become  more  and  more 
painfully  sensible  of  the  desolation  made  around  us  by 
death,  if  sleep  —  the  ante-chamber  of  the  grave  —  were 
not  hung  by  dreams  with  the  busts  of  those  who  live  in 
the  other  world. 


TWO   DIVISIONS   OF   PHILOSOPHIC   MINDS. 

THERE  are  two  very  different  classes  of  philosophi- 
cal heads  —  which,  since  Kant  has  introduced  into 
philosophy  the  idea  of  positive  and  negative  quantities,  I 
shall  willingly  classify  by  means  of  that  distinction.  The 
'positive  intellect  is,  like  the  poet,  in  conjunction  with  the 
outer  world,  the  father  of  an  inner  world  ;  and,  like  the 
poet  also,  holds  up  a  transforming  mirror  in  which  the 


342  ANALECTS    FROM    RICHTER. 

entangled  and  distorted  members  as  they  are  seen  in  our 
actual  experience  enter  into  new  combinations  which 
compose  a  fair  and  luminous  world :  the  hypothesis  of 
Idealism  (i.  e.  the  Fichtean  system)  the  Monads  and  the 
Pre-established  Harmony  of  Leibnitz  —  and  Spinozism 
are  all  births  of  a  genial  moment,  and  not  the  wooden 
carving  of  logical  toil.  Such  men  therefore  as  Leibnitz, 
Plato,  Herder,  &c.,  I  call  positive  intellects ;  because 
they  seek  and  yield  the  positive  ;  and  because  their  inner 
world,  having  raised  itself  higher  out  of  the  water  than  in 
others,  thereby  overlooks  a  larger  prospect  of  island  and 
continents.  A  negative  head,  on  the  other  hand,  dis- 
covers by  its  acuteness  —  not  any  positive  truths,  but  the 
negative  (i.  e.  the  errors)  of  other  people.  Such  an  in- 
tellect, as  for  example  Bayle,  one  of  the  greatest  of  that 
class,  —  appraises  the  funds  of  others,  rather  than  brings 
any  fresh  funds  of  his  own.  In  lieu  of  the  obscure  ideas 
which  he  finds  he  gives  us  clear  ones  :  but  in  this  there  is 
no  positive  accession  to  our  knowledge  ;  for  all  that  the 
clear  idea  contains  in  development  exists  already  by 
implication  in  the  obscure  idea.  Negative  intellects  of 
every  age  are  unanimous  in  their  abhorrence  of  every- 
thing positive.  Impulse,  feeling,  instinct  —  everything, 
in  short,  which  is  incomprehensible,  they  can  endure  just 
once  —  that  is,  at  the  summit  of  their  chain  of  arguments 
as  a  sort  of  hook  on  which  they  may  hang  them,  —  but 
never  afterwards. 


DIGNITY   OF   MAN   IN   SELF-SACRIFICE. 

THAT  for  which  man  offers  up  his   blood   or  his 
property  must  be  more  valuable  than  they.      A 
good  man  does  not  fight  with  half  the  courage  for  his  own 


ANALECTS    FROM    EICHTER.  343 

life  that  he  shows  in  the  protection  of  another's.  The 
mother,  who  will  hazard  nothing  for  herself,  will  hazard 
all  in  defence  of  her  child  :  —  in  short,  only  for  the  no- 
bility within  us  —  only  for  virtue,  will  man  open  his  veins 
and  offer  up  his  spirit :  but  this  nobility  —  this  virtue  — 
presents  different  phases :  wdth  the  Christian  martyr,  it  is 
faith  ;  with  the  savage,  it  is  honor ;  with  the  republican,  it 
is  liberty. 


FANCY. 

FANCY  can  lay  only  the  past  and  the  future  under 
her  copying-paper :  and  every  actual  presence  of 
the  object  sets  limits  to  her  power  :  just  as  water  distilled 
from  roses,  according  to  the  old  naturalists,  lost  its  power 
exactly  at  the  periodical  blooming  of  the  rose. 


THE  older,  the  more  tranquil,  and  pious  a  man  is,  so 
much  the  more  holy  does  he  esteem  all  that  is  in- 
nate, that  is,  feeling  dindi  power  ;  whereas  in  the  estimate  of 
the  multitude  whatsoever  is  self-acquired,  the  ability  of 
practice  and  science  in  general  has  an  undue  pre-eminence; 
for  the  latter  is  universally  appreciated,  and  therefore 
even  by  those  who  have  it  not,  but  the  former  not  at  all. 
In  the  twilight  and  the  moonshine  the  fixed  stars,  which 
are  suns,  retire  and  veil  themselves  in  obscurity ;  whilst 
the  planets,  which  are  simply  earths,  preserve  their 
borrowed  light  unobscured.  The  elder  races  of  men, 
amongst  whom  man  was  more,  though  he  had  not  yet 
become  so  much,  had  a  childlike  feeling  of  sympathy  with 
all  the  gifts  of  the  Infinite  —  for  example,  with  strength 
—  beauty  —  and  good  fortune ;  and  even  the  involuntary 


344  ANALECTS    FROM    RICHTER. 

had  a  sanctity  in  their  eyes,  and  was  to  them  a  prophecy 
and  a  revelation :  hence  the  value  they  ascribed,  and  the 
art  of  interpretation  they  applied,  to  the  speeches  of  chil- 
dren —  of  madmen  —  of  drunkards  —  and  of  dreamers. 


I 


AS  the  blind  man  knows  not  light,  and  through  that 
ignorance  also  of  necessity  knows  not  darkness,  — 
so  likewise,  but  for  disinterestedness  we  should  know  noth- 
ing of  selfishness,  but  for  slavery  nothing  of  freedom  :  there 
are  perhaps  in  this  world  many  things  which  remain  ob- 
scure to  us  for  want  of  alternating  with  their  opposites. 


DERHAM  remarks  in  his  Physico-theology  that  the 
deaf  hear  best  in  the  midst  of  noise,  as,  for  instance, 
during  the  ringing  of  bells,  &c.  This  must  be  the  reason, 
1  suppose,  that  the  thundering  of  drums,  cannons,  &c.,  ac- 
company the  entrance  into  cities  of  princes  and  ministers, 
who  are  generally  rather  deaf,  in  order  that  they  may 
the  better  hear  the  petitions  and  complaints  of  the  people. 


Miscellaneous    Pieces, 


t>?)0<3Lj 


15* 


REMINISCENCES 

OF  THE    BEST   HOURS    OF    LIFE    FOR  THE   HOUR 
OF    DEATH. 


IVE  me,"  said  Herder  to  his  son,  as  he  lay 
in  the  parched  weariness  of  his  last  illness,  — 
"  give  me  a  great  thought,  that  I  may  quicken 
myself  with  it." 
It  marks  a  strange  perversity  in  human  nature,  that  we 
are  wont  to  offer  nothing  but  images  of  terror  —  no  stars  of 
cheering  light  —  to  those  who  lie  imprisoned  in  the  darkness 
of  a  sick-bed,  when  the  glitter  of  the  dew  of  life  is  wax- 
ing gray  and  dim  before  them.  It  is  indeed  hard  that 
lamentations  and  emotions  are  frequently  vented  upon  the 
dying,  which  would  be  withheld  from  the  living  in  all 
their  vigor ;  as  if  the  sick  patient  was  to  console  those  in 
health.  There  stands  no  spirit  in  the  closeness  of  a  sick- 
chamber  to  awaken  a  cheering  smile  on  that  nerveless, 
colorless  countenance ;  but  only  confessors,  lawyers,  and 
doctors,  who  order  everything,  and  relatives  who  lament 
at  everything.  There  stands  no  lofty  spirit,  elevated 
above  the  circumstance  of  sorrow,  to  conduct  the  pros- 
trate soul  of  the  sufferer,  thirsty  for  the  refreshment  of 
joy,  back  to  the  old  springtide  waters  of  pious  recollec- 
tion ;  and  so  to  mingle  these  with  the  last  ecstasies  of 
life,  as  to  give  the  dying  man  a  foreboding  of  his  transi- 


348  REMINISCENCES. 

tion  to  another  state.  On  the  contrary,  the  death-bed  is 
narrowed  into  a  coffin  without  a  lid.  The  value  of  life  is 
enhanced  to  the  departing  one  by  lies  which  promise  cure, 
or  words  which  proffer  consolation ;  the  bier  is  repre- 
sented as  a  scaffold,  the  harsh  discord  of  life  is  trumpeted 
into  the  ears  which  survive  long  after  the  eyes  are  dead, 
instead  of  letting  life  ebb  away  like  an  echo  in  sounds 
ever  deeper,  though  fainter.  Nevertheless,  man  has  this 
of  good  in  him,  that  he  recalls  the  slightest  joy  which  he 
has  shared  with  a  dying  person,  far  rather  than  a  thou- 
sand greater  pleasures  given  to  a  person  in  health ;  per- 
haps because,  in  the  latter  case,  we  hope  to  repeat  and 
redouble  our  attentions,  —  so  little  do  mortals  reflect  that 
every  pleasure  they  give  or  they  receive  may  be  the  last. 

Our  exit  from  life  would  therefore  be  greatly  more 
painful  than  our  entrance  into  it,  were  it  not  that  our 
good  mother  Nature  had  previously  mitigated  its  suffer- 
ings, by  gently  bearing  her  children  from  one  world  into 
another  when  they  are  already  heavy  with  sleep.  For  in 
the  hour  before  the  last  she  allows  a  breastplate  of  indif- 
ference toward  the  survivors  to  freeze  about  the  heart  of 
the  lamented  one ;  and  in  the  hour  immediately  preceding 
dissolution  (as  we  learn  from  those  who  have  recovered 
from  apparent  death,  and  from  the  demeanor  of  many 
dying  persons),  the  brain  is,  as  it  were,  inundated  and 
watered  by  faint  eddies  of  bliss,  comparable  to  nothing 
upon  earth  better  than  to  the  ineffable  sensations  felt  by 
a  patient  under  magnetic  treatment. 

We  can  by  no  means  know  how  high  these  sensations 
of  dying  may  reach,  as  we  have  accounts  of  them  from 
none  but  those  in  whom  the  process  has  been  interrupted ; 
nor  can  we  ascertain  whether  it  is  not  these  ecstatical 
transports  which  exhaust  life  more  than  the  convulsions 


REMINISCENCES.  349 

of  pain,  and  which  loosen  the  tie  of  this  terrestrial  state  in 
some  unknown  heaven. 

The  history  of  the  dying  is  a  serious  and  prodigious 
history,  but  on  earth  its  leaves  will  never  be  unrolled. 

In  the  little  village  of  Heim,  Gottreich  Hartmann  re- 
sided with  his  old  father,  who  was  a  curate  ;  and  although 
the  old  man  had  wellnigh  outHved  all  those  whom  he  had 
loved,  he  was  made  happy  by  his  son.  Gottreich  dis- 
charged his  duties  for  him  in  the  parish,  not  so  much  in 
aid  of  his  parent's  unflinching  vigor,  as  to  satisfy  his  own 
energy,  and  to  give  his  father  the  exquisite  gratification 
of  being  edified  by  his  child  and  companion. 

In  Gottreich  there  thrilled  a  spirit  of  true  poetry  ;  he 
was  not,  like  the  greater  number  of  poetical  young  men, 
a  bulbous  plant,  which,  when  it  has  sent  forth  its  own 
flower,  fattens  its  unseemly  fruit  underground ;  but  he 
was  a  tree  which  crowned  its  variegated  blossoms  with 
sweet  and  beautiful  fruits ;  and  these  buds  were  as  yet 
coiled  up  from  the  warmth  of  the  earliest  springtide  of  a 
poet's  hfe. 

His  father  had  had  in  his  youth  a  poet's  ardor  of  like 
intensity,  but  it  was  not  favored  by  the  times  ;  for  in  the 
last  century  many  a  spirit  which  might  have  soared  was 
engaged  to  the  pulpit  or  the  law-court,  because  the  old- 
fashioned  middle  classes  were  convinced  that  their  off*- 
spring  would  find  richer  pasture  on  the  meadow  and  in 
the  valley  than  on  the  peaks  of  the  mountain  of  the 
Muses. 

Nevertheless,  the  repressed  spirit  of  a  poet,  when  it 
cannot  exhale  itself  in  creation,  recoils  but  the  more 
closely  into  the  depths  of  his  heart.  His  unuttered  feel- 
ings speak  in  his  motions  as  with  a  voice,  and  his  actions 


350  REMINISCENCES. 

express  bis  imagery,  and  in  this  manner  the  poet  may- 
live  as  long  as  the  man ;  just  as  the  short-Hved  butterfly 
may  last  out  the  long,  hard  winter  in  its  chrysabs  state,  if 
it  has  not  burst  its  prison  in  the  preceding  summer. 

Such  had  been  the  life  of  the  elder  Hartmann  ;  and 
yet  more  beautiful  was  it.  because  the  virginal  soul  of  the 
poet  lives  in  the  offices  of  religion,  as  in  a  nun's  cell;  and 
the  twin  sisters  Piety  and  Poetry  are  wont  to  dwell  to- 
gether and  stand  by  one  another. 

How  beautiful  and  how  pure  is  the  position  of  God's 
ministers  !  All  that  is  good  dwells  around  them,  —  relig- 
ion, poetry,  and  the  life  of  a  shepherd  of  souls  ;  whilst 
other  professions  oft  serve  only  to  choke  up  this  goodly 
neighborhood.  Son  and  father  seemed  to  live  in  one  an- 
other, and  on  the  site  of  filial  and  paternal  love  there 
arose  the  structure  of  a  rare  and  singular  friendship. 
Grottreich  not  only  cheered  his  father  by  the  new  birth  of 
his  lost  poet's  youth,  but  by  the  still  more  beautiful  simi- 
larity of  their  fiith.  In  days  gone  by,  a  minister  who 
sent  his  son  to  the  public  theological  schools  might  expect 
him  to  return  the  sworn  antagonist  of  all  that  he  had  him- 
self daily  prayed  to  at  the  altar  in  the  discharge  of  his 
office :  the  son  returned  to  his  father's  roof  as  a  mission- 
ary sent  to  convert  the  heathen,  or  as  an  antichrist. 
There  may  have  been  sorrows  of  a  father,  which,  though 
all  unspoken,  were  deeper  than  a  mother's  sorrows.  But 
times  are  perhaps  better  now. 

Gottreich,  though  he  entered  the  high  schools  with  his 
share  of  the  uppish  quibbling  of  eai'ly  youth,  returned 
with  the  faith  of  his  ancestors  and  of  his  father.  For  he 
had  studied  under  instructors  who  had  taught  him  to  cUng 
rather  to  the  teachings  of  the  old  iaith  than  to  the  inge- 
nious explanations  of  the  commentators,  and  who  had  ex- 


I 


REMINISCENCES.  351 

posed  to  the  light  alone  what  is  serviceable  to  man,  as  to 
a  plant,  and  to  its  outward  growth,  but  not  the  roots  per- 
niciously. Thus  the  father  found  again  his  old  Christian 
heart  sending  forth  new  shoots  in  the  bosom  of  his  Gott- 
reich,  and  moreover  the  best  justification  of  the  convictions 
of  his  life  and  of  his  love. 

If  it  be  pain  to  us  to  love  and  at  the  same  time  to  con- 
tradict, to  refuse  with  the  head  what  the  heart  grants,  it 
is  all  the  sweeter  to  us  to  find  ourselves  and  our  faith 
transplanted  forwards  in  a  younger  being.  Life  is  then  a 
beautiful  night,  in  which  not  one  star  goes  down  but  an- 
other rises  in  its  place. 

Gottreich  possessed  a  paradise,  in  which  he  labored 
as  his  father's  gardener ;  he  was  at  once  the  wife,  the 
brother,  the  friend,  the  all  that  is  to  be  loved  by  man,  of 
his  parent.  Every  Sunday  brought  him  a  new  pleasure, 
that  of  preaching  a  sermon  before  his  father.  He  dis- 
played so  much  power  in  his  pulpit  eloquence,  that  he 
seemed  to  labor  more  for  the  elevation  and  edification  of 
his  father  than  for  the  enlightenment  of  the  common  peo- 
ple ;  though  he  held  a  maxim,  which  I  take  to  be  far 
from  erroneous,  that  the  highest  subjects  of  intellectual 
speculation  are  good  for  the  people  as  for  children,  and 
that  man  can  only  learn  to  rise,  from  the  consideration  of 
that  which  he  cannot  surmount.  If  the  eye  of  the  old 
man  was  moistened,  or  if  his  hands  were  suddenly  folded 
in  an  attitude  of  prayer,  the  Sunday  became  the  holiest 
of  festivals ;  and  many  a  festival  has  there  been  in  that 
quiet  little  parsonage,  whose  festivity  no  one  understood 
and  no  one  perceived.  He  who  looks  upon  sermon- 
preaching  and  sermon-hearing  as  a  dull  pleasure,  will  but 
little  understand  the  zest  with  which  the  two  friends  con- 
versed on  discourses  delivered,  and  on  those  yet  to  come, 


352  F.EMINISCEXCES. 

as  if  pulpit-criticism  was  as  engrossing  as  the  criticism  of 
the  stage.  The  approbation  and  the  lore  of  an  energetic 
old  man  hke  Hartmann.  whose  spiritual  limbs  had  by  no 
means  stiffened  on  the  chilly  ridge  of  years,  could  not  but 
exercise  a  powerful  influence  on  a  young  man  like  Gott- 
reich.  who.  more  tenderly  and  delicately  formed  both  in 
body  and  mind,  was  wont  to  shoot  fonh  in  loftier  and 
more  rapid  ftame. 

To  these  two  happy  men  was  added  a  happy  woman 
also.  Justa,  an  orphan,  sole  mistress  of  her  propeny,  had 
entirely  left  and  sold  the  trading-house  which  had  been 
her  fathers,  in  the  town,  and  had  removed  into  the  upper 
part  of  a  good  peasant's  cottage,  to  live  entirely  in  the 
counrry.  Justa  did  nothing  in  the  world  by  halves,  but 
she  often  did  things  more  than  most  would  deem  com- 
pletely, at  least  in  all  that  touched  her  generosity.  She 
had  not  long  resided  in  the  village  of  Heim.  and  had  seen 
the  meek  GiDitreich,  and  listened  to  some  of  his  springtide 
sermons,  ere  she  discovered  that  he  had  won  her  heart, 
fiUed  as  it  was  with  the  love  of  virtue  :  she  nevertheles3 
refused  to  grant  him  her  hand  until  the  conclusion  of  the 
great  peace,  after  which  they  were  to  be  married.  She 
was  ever  fonder  of  doing  what  is  difficult  than  what  is 
easy.  I  wish  that  it  was  here  the  place  to  tell  of  the 
May-time  life  they  led,  which  seemed  to  blossom  in  the 
low  parsonage-house  hard  by  the  church-door  under  Jus- 
ta's  hand :  how  she  came  in  the  morning  from  her  own 
cottage,  to  order  matters  in  the  little  dwelling  for  the  day ; 
how  the  evenings  were  passed  in  the  garden,  ornamented 
with  few,  but  pretty  flower-beds,  and  commanding  a  view 
of  many  a  weU-watered  meadow  and  distant  hill,  and  stars 
without  numlxrr  :  how  these  three  hearts  played  into  one 
another,  no  one  of  which  in  this  most  pure  and  intimate 


REMINISCENCES.  353 

intercourse  knew  or  felt  anything  which  was  not  of  the 
fairest ;  and  how  good  and  gay  intention  marked  the  pas- 
sage of  their  lives.  Every  bench  was  a  church  chair,  all 
was  peaceful  and  holy,  and  the  firmament  above  an  infi- 
nite church  dome. 

In  many  a  village  and  in  many  a  house  a  true  Eden 
may  be  hid,  which  has  neither  been  named  nor  marked 
down  ;  for  joy  is  fond  of  covering  over  and  concealing  her 
tenderest  flowers.  Gottreich  reposed  in  such  a  fulness  of 
bliss  and  love,  of  poetry  and  religion,  of  springtime,  of  the 
past  and  of  the  future,  that  he  feared  in  the  bottom  of  his 
heart  to  speak  his  happiness  out,  save  in  prayer.  In 
prayer,  thought  he,  man  may  say  all,  his  happiness  and 
his  misery.  His  father  was  very  happy  also ;  there  came 
over  him  a  warm  old  age, —  no  winter  night,  but  a  summer 
evening,  without  frost  or  darkness  :  albeit  the  sun  of  his 
life  was  sunk  pretty  deep  below  the  mound  of  earth  under 
which  his  wife  was  lain  down  to  sleep. 

Nothing  recalls  the  close  of  life  to  a  noble-hearted 
young  man  so  much  as  precisely  the  happiest  and  fairest 
hours  which  he  passes.  Gottreich,  in  the  midst  of  the 
united  fragrance  and  beauty  of  the  flowers  of  joy,  even 
with  the  morning-star  of  life  above  him,  could  not  but 
think  on  the  time  when  the  same  should  appear  to  him  as 
the  evening  star,  warning  him  of  sleep.  Then  said  he  to 
himself :  "  All  is  now  so  certain  and  so  clear  before  me,  — 
the  beauty  and  the  holiness  of  life,  the  splendor  of  the 
universe,  the  Creator,  the  dignity  and  the  greatness  of 
man's  heart,  the  bright  images  of  eternal  truth,  the  whole 
starry  firmament  of  ideas,  which  enlightens,  instructs,  and 
upholds  man  !  But  when  I  am  grown  old,  and  in  the 
obstruction  of  death,  will  not  all  that  now  rustles  so 
bloomingly  and  livingly  about  me  appear  gray  and  dull  ? 


354  REMINISCENCES. 

Just  when  man  is  approacliing  that  heaven  which  he  has 
so  long  contemplated,  Death  holds  the  telescope  inverted 
before  his  dim  eye,  and  lets  him  see  only  what  is  empty, 
distant,  shadowy.  But  is  this  indeed  true  ?  Shall  I  be 
more  likely  to  be  right  when  I  only  feel  and  think  and 
hope,  with  half  a  Hfe,  incapable  of  a  keen  glance  or  an 
intense  sensation,  —  or  am  I  right  now,  that  my  whole 
heart  is  warm,  that  my  whole  head  is  clear,  and  my 
strength  fresh  ?  I  acknowledge  that  the  present  is  the 
fittest  season,  and  that  precisely  because  I  do  acknowledge 
it  to  be  the  fittest.  I  will  then  live  through  this  daytime 
of  truth  attentively,  and  bear  it  away  with  me  to  the 
evening  dusk,  that  it  may  lighten  my  end." 

In  these  sweetest  May-hours  of  youth,  when  heaven  and 
earth  and  his  own  heart  were  beating  together  in  har- 
mony, he  gave  ardent  words  to  his  ardent  thoughts,  and 
kept  them  written  down  under  the  title  of  "  Reminiscences 
of  the  best  Hours  of  Life  for  the  Hour  of  Death.""  He 
meant  to  cheer  himself  at  his  last  hour  with  these  views 
of  his  happy  life,  and  to  look  back  from  the  glow  of  the 
evening  to  the  brightness  of  the  morning  of  his  youth. 

Thus  lived  these  three  beings,  ever  rejoicing  more 
deeply  in  one  another  and  in  their  genial  happiness,  when 
at  last  the  chariots  of  the  struggle  and  the  victories  of  the 
holy  war  *  began  to  roll  over  the  land. 

Now  Gottreich  became  another  man ;  Hke  a  young 
bird  of  passage,  which,  though  it  know  nothing  of  summer 
climates,  frets  in  its  warm  cage  that  it  cannot  fly  away 
with  the  older  birds  of  its  kind.  The  active  powers  of 
his  nature,  which  had  heretofore  been  the  quiet  audience 
of   his   poetical   and   oratorical   powers,    arose ;    and   it 

*  The  campaign  of  1813  - 14  was  the  holy  war  of  Germany,  or 
Freiheitskampf,  to  which  Jean  Paul  here  alludes.  —  Translator. 


REMINISCENCES.  355 

seemed  to  him  as  if  the  spirit  of  energy,  which  hitherto 
had  wasted  itself  Hke  the  flames  of  a  bituminous  soil  on 
the  empty  air,  were  now  seeking  an  object  to  lay  hold  of. 
He  dared  not,  however,  risk  to  propose  a  separation  to 
his  father,  but  he  by  turns  tormented  and  refreshed  him- 
self inwardly  with  the  idea  of  laboring  and  combating 
with  the  rest.  To  Justa  alone  he  confided  his  wishes, 
but  she  did  not  give  them  encouragement,  because  she 
thought  the  old  man's  solitude  would  be  too  great  for  him 
to  bear.  At  last  the  old  man  himself,  inspirited  for  war 
by  Gottreich  and  his  betrothed  one,  said  that  his  son  had 
better  go,  that  he  had  long  desired  it,  and  had  only  been 
silent  through  love  for  him.  He  hoped,  with  Grod's  aid, 
to  be  able  to  discharge  his  pastoral  duties  for  a  twelve- 
month ;  so  that  he,  too,  should  be  doing  something  for  his 
country. 

Gk)ttreieh  departed,  trusting  to  the  autumnal  strength 
of  his  father's  life.  He  enlisted  as  a  common  soldier,  and 
preached  also  wherever  he  was  able.  The  entrance  on  a 
new  career  awakens  new  energies  and  powers,  which 
rapidly  unfold  into  life  and  vigor.  Although  fortune 
spared  him  the  wounds  which  he  would  so  willingly  have 
brought  back  with  him  into  the  peaceful  future  of  his  life, 
in  memory  as  it  were  of  the  focus  of  his  youth,  yet  it  was 
happiness  enough  to  take  part  in  the  battles,  and,  like  an 
old  republican,  to  fight  together  with  a  whole  nation  for 
the  common  cause. 

When  at  length,  in  the  most  beautiful  month  of  May 
which  ever  Germany  had  won  by  conquest,  the  festivals 
of  victory  and  of  peace  began  in  more  than  one  nation. 
Gottreich  was  unwilling  to  pass  those  days  of  rejoicing  so 
far  from  those  who  were  dearest  to  him  ;  he  longed  for 
their  company,  that  his  joy  miglit  be  doubled  :  so  he  took 


356  REMINISCENCES. 

the  road  to  Heim.  Thousands,  before  and  after  him, 
journeyed  at  that  time  over  the  Hberated  land,  from  a 
happy  past  to  a  happy  future  ;  but  few  there  were  who 
saw,  Hke  Gottreich,  so  pure  a  firmament  over  the  moun- 
tains of  his  native  valleys,  in  which  not  a  star  was  miss- 
ing, but  every  one  of  them  was  twinkhng  and  bright. 
Justa  had  already  sent  him  the  little  annals  of  the  par- 
sonage ;  had  told  him  how  she  longed  for  his  return,  and 
how  his  father  rejoiced  ;  how  well  the  old  man  stood  the 
labors  of  his  office,  and  how  she  had  still  better  secrets  of 
joy  in  store  for  him.  To  these  latter  belonged,  perhaps, 
one  which  he  had  not  forgotten,  namely,  her  promise  to 
give  him  her  hand  after  the  great  peace. 

With  such  prospects  he  enjoyed  in  thought,  ever  from 
Whitsuntide  forwards,  that  holy  evening  when  he  should 
unexpectedly  relieve  the  old  man  from  all  his  labors,  and 
begin  to  prepare  the  tranquil  festivities  of  the  village. 

As  he  was  thus  thinking  upon  that  day's  meeting,  and 
as  the  mountains  above  his  father's  village,  in  which  he 
was  so  soon  to  clasp  those  fond  hearts  to  his  own,  were 
seen  more  and  more  clearly  in  relief  against  the  blue  skj, 
his  "  Reminiscences  of  the  best  Hours  of  Life  for  the  Hour 
of  Death  "  re-echoed  in  his  soul,  and  he  could  not  refrain 
from  noting  amongst  them,  as  he  went  along,  the  joy  of 
meeting  again  here  below. 

Behind  him  there  was  coming  up  a  storm  from  the 
east,  in  the  direction  of  his  home,  before  which  he  seemed 
to  come  a  happy  messenger  ;  for  the  storms  of  war,  which 
he  had  seen  upon  the  earth,  had  reconciled  to  him  and 
made  him  love  those  of  heaven  ;  and  the  parched  ground, 
the  dropping  flowers,  and  the  ears  of  corn  had  long  been 
thirsting  for  the  waters  of  the  warm  clouds.  A  parish- 
ioner of  Heim,  who  was  laborinoj  in  the  fields,  saluted  him 


REMINISCENCES.  357 

as  he  passed,  and  expressed  liis  joy  that  the  rain  and 
Gottreich  had  both  come  at  last  together. 

And  now  he  caught  sight  of  the  low  church-steeple, 
peeping  from  the  clustered  trees,  and  he  entered  upon 
that  tract  of  the  valley  where  the  parsonage  lay,  all  red- 
dened by  the  evening  sun.  At  every  window  he  hoped 
to  see  his  betrothed  one,  if  perchance  she  might  be  look- 
ing out  on  the  sunset  before  the  storm  came  on ;  and  as 
he  came  nearer,  he  hoped  to  see  the  lattice  open,  and 
Whitsuntide  brooms  in  the  chief  apartment ;  but  he  found 
nothing  of  all  this. 

At  last  he  entered  quietly  the  parsonage-house,  and 
slowly  opened  the  well-known  door.  The  room  was 
empty,  but  he  heard  a  noise  overhead.  When  he  opened 
the  door  of  his  upper  chamber,  which  was  filled  with  a 
glow  from  the  west,  Justa  was  kneeling  before  the  bed  of 
his  father,  who,  sitting  half  upright,  was  looking  witli  a 
haggard,  stiff,  and  bony  countenance  toward  the  setting 
sun  before  him.  A  clasp  of  her  lover  to  her  breast,  and 
one  exclamation,  was  all  his  reception.  But  his  father 
stretched  his  wizened  hand  slowly  out,  and  said,  with 
difficulty,  "  Thou  art  come  at  the  right  time  ! "  without 
adding  whether  he  spoke  of  the  preachings  or  of  their 
separation. 

Justa  hastily  related  how  the  old  man  had  overworked 
himself,  till  body  and  spirit  had  given  way  together,  —  so 
that  he  no  longer  took  a  share  in  anything,  though  he 
longed  to  be  with  the  sharers,  —  and  how  he  lay  prostrate 
with  broken  wings,  looking  upwards  like  a  needy  child. 
The  old  man  was  grown  hard  of  hearing,  and  she  could 
say  all  this  in  his  presence. 

Gottreich  soon  confirmed  it  to  himself  He  would  fain 
have  infused  the  fire  of  conquest,  reflected  in  his  own 


358  REMINISCENCES. 

bosom,  which,  hke  a  red  evening  cloud,  was  announcing  a 
fair  dawn  to  Europe,  into  that  old  and  once  strong  heart  ; 
but  he  heard  neither  wish  nor  question  of  it.  The  old 
man  gazed  steadily  upon  the  sun,  until  at  last  it  was  hid 
by  the  storm.  Nevertheless  the  war  of  the  elements 
seemed  to  touch  him  but  little  ;  the  glare  of  life  broke 
dimly  through  the  thickening  ice  of  death.  A  dying 
man  knows  no  present,  —  nothing  but  the  future  and  the 
past. 

On  a  sudden  the  landscape  grew  dark,  all  the  winds 
stood  pent,  the  earth  oppressed ;  then  there  came  a  gush 
of  rain  and  a  crash  of  thunder.  The  lightning  streamed 
around  the  old  man,  and  he  looked  up  altered  and  aston- 
ished. "  Hist !  "  said  he  ;  "I  hear  the  rain  once  more  ; 
—  speak  quickly,  children,  for  I  shall  soon  depart." 

Both  his  children  clung  to  him,  but  he  was  too  weak  to 
embrace  them. 

And  now,  as  the  warm,  healing  springs  of  the  clouds 
bathed  the  sick  earth,  down  from  the  dripping  tree  to  the 
blades  of  grass,  and  as  the  sky  glistened  mildly  as  with  a 
tear  of  joy,  and  the  thunder  went  warring  away  behind 
the  distant  mountains,  the  sick  man  pointed  upwards, 
and  said,  "  Seest  thou  the  lordliness  of  God  ?  My  son, 
strengthen  now  at  the  last  my  weary  soul  with  something 
holy,  in  the  spirit  of  love,  and  not  of  penance ;  for  if  our 
hearts  condemn  us  not,  then  have  we  confidence  toward 
God.  Say  something  rich  in  love  to  me  of  God  and  of 
his  works." 

Then  the  eyes  of  his  son  overflowed,  to  think  that  he 
should  read  the  Reminiscences  which  he  had  prepared  for 
his  own  death-bed  at  the  death-bed  of  his  father.  When 
he  said  this  to  him,  the  old  man  answered,  "  Hasten, 
my  son  ! "  and  with  a  faltermg  voice,  Gottreich  began  to 
read  :  — 


EEMINISCENCES.  359 

"  Remember,  in  the  darkening  hour,  that  the  glow  of 
the  universe  once  filled  thy  breast,  and  that  thou  hast  ac- 
knowledged the  magnitude  of  existence.  Hast  thou  not 
looked  forth  into  one  half  of  infinity  by  night,  and  into 
the  other  half  by  day  ?  Think  away  the  nothingness  of 
space,  and  the  earth  which  is  around  thee  ;  worlds  above, 
around,  and  beneath  arch  thee  about  as  a  centre,  all  im- 
pelling and  impelled,  splendor  within  splendor,  magnitude 
within  magnitude ;  all  brightness  centring  in  the  univer- 
sal Sun.  Carry  thy  thoughts  forwards  through  eternity, 
toward  that  universal  Sun  ;  thou  shalt  not  arrive  at  dark- 
ness nor  emptiness.  What  is  empty  dwells  only  between 
the  worlds,  not  around  the  world. 

"  Remember,  in  the  dark  hour,  those  times  when  thou 
hast  prayed  to  God  in  ecstasy,  and  when  thou  hast  thought 
on  him,  —  the  greatest  thought  of  finite  man,  —  the  Infi- 
nite One  ! " 

Here  the  old  man  clasped  his  hands,  and  prayed 
low. 

"  Hast  thou  not  known  and  felt  the  existence  of  that 
Being,  whose  infinity  consists  not  only  in  his  strength,  in 
his  wisdom,  and  his  eternity,  but  also  in  his  love  and  in 
his  justice  ?  Canst  thou  forget  the  time  when  the  blue 
sky  by  day  and  the  blue  sky  by  night  opened  on  thee, 
as  if  the  mildness  of  God  was  looking  down  on  thee  ? 
Hast  thou  not  felt  the  love  of  the  Infinite,  when  it  veiled 
itself  in  its  image,  in  loving  hearts  of  men  ;  as  the  sun, 
which  casts  its  light  not  on  our  moon  alone,  for  our 
nights,  but  on  the  morning  and  evening  star  also,  and 
on  every  Httle  twinkler,  even  to  the  farthest  from  the 
earth  ? 

"  Remember,  in  the  dark  hour,  how  in  the  spring  of  thy 
life  the  mounds  of  earth  which  are  graves  appeared  to 


360  REMINISCENCES. 

thee  only  as  the  mountain-tops  of  another  far  and  new 
world ;  and  how  in  the  midst  of  the  fulness  of  life  thou 
didst  acknowledge  the  value  of  death.  The  snow  of  the 
grave  shall  warm  the  frost-bitten  limbs  of  age  to  life  again. 
As  a  navigator  who  suddenly  disembarks  from  the  cold, 
wintry,  and  lonely  sea,  upon  a  coast  which  is  laden  with  the 
warm,  rich  blossoms  of  spring,  so  with  one  leap  from  our 
little  bai'k  we  pass  at  once  from  winter  to  an  eternal 
springtime. 

"  Rejoice,  in  this  dark  hour,  that  thy  life  dwells  in  the 
midst  of  a  wider  and  larger  life.  The  earth-clod  of  the 
globe  has  been  divinely  breathed  upon.  A  world  swarms 
with  hfe,  —  for  the  leaf  of  every  tree  is  a  land  of  souls  ; 
and  every  little  life  would  freeze  and  perish,  if  it  were  not 
warmed  and  borne  up  by  the  eddies  of  life  about  it.  The 
sea  of  time  ghtters,  like  the  sea  of  space,  with  countless 
beings  of  light :  death  and  resurrection  are  the  valleys 
and  mountains  of  the  ever-swelling  ocean.  There  exists 
no  dead  anatomy  ;  what  seems  to  be  such  is  only  another 
body.  Without  a  universal  living  existence,  there  would 
be  nothing  but  a  wide,  all-encompassing  death.  We  chng 
like  mosses  to  the  Alps  of  nature,  drawing  life  from  the  high 
clouds.  Man  is  the  butterfly  which  flutters  up  to  Chim- 
borazo,  but  above  the  butterfly  soars  the  condor  :  however 
many,  small  or  great,  the  giant  and  the  child  are  free 
wanderers  in  one  garden  ;  and  the  fly  of  a  day  may  re- 
trace its  infinite  series  of  progenitors  to  those  first  beings 
of  its  kind  which  played  over  the  waters  of  Paradise 
before  the  evening  sun. 

"  Never  forget  the  thought,  which  is  now  so  clear  to 
thee,  that  the  individuality  of  man  lasts  out  the  greatest 
suffering  and  the  most  entrancing  joy  alike  unscathed, 
while  the  body  crumbles  away  in  the  pains  and  pleasures 


EEMINISCENCES.  361 

of  tlie  flesh.  Herein  are  souls  like  marsh-lights,  which 
shine  in  the  storm  and  the  rain  unextinguishable. 

"  Canst  thou  forget,  in  the  dark  hour,  that  there  have 
been  mighty  men  amongst  us,  and  that  thou  art  following 
after  them  ?  Raise  thyself  like  the  spirits  which  stood 
upon  their  mountains,  having  the  storm  of  life  only  about 
and  never  above  them.  Call  back  to  thee  the  kingly 
race  of  sages  and  of  poets,  who  have  inspirited  and  en- 
lightened nation  after  nation." 

"  Speak  of  our  Redeemer !  "  said  the  father. 

*'  Remember  Jesus  Christ,  in  the  dark  hour,  -^-  remem- 
ber Him  who  also  passed  through  life,  —  remember  that 
soft  Moon  of  the  infinite  Sun,  given  to  enlighten  the  night 
of  the  world.  Let  life  be  hallowed  to  thee,  and  death 
also,  for  he  shared  both  of  them  with  thee.  May  his 
calm  and  lofty  form  look  down  on  thee  in  the  last  dark- 
ness, and  show  thee  his  Father ! " 

A  low  roll  of  thunder  was  now  heard  to  pass  over  the 
dun  clouds  which  the  tempest  had  left,  and  the  setting 
sun  filled  the  entire  vault  of  heaven  with  the  magnificence 
of  his  fire. 

"  Remember,  in  the  last  hour,  how  the  heart  of  man 
can  love.  Canst  thou  forget  the  love  wherewith  one 
heart  repays  a  thousand  hearts,  and  the  soul  during  life  is 
nourished  and  vivified  from  another  soul,  as  the  oak  of  a 
hundred  years  clings  fast  to  the  same  spot  with  its  roots, 
and  derives  new  strength,  and  sends  forth  new  buds 
during  its  hundred  springs?" 

"  Dost  thou  mean  me  ?  "  said  the  father. 

"  I  mean  my  mother  also,"  replied  the  son. 

Justa  wept,  when  she  heard  how  her  lover  would  con- 
sole himself  in  his  last  hours  with  the  reminiscence  of 
the  days  of  her  love ;  and  the  father  said,  but  very 
16 


362  REMINISCENCES. 

gently,  thinking  on  his  wife,  "  To  meet  again,  to  meet 
again ! " 

"  Remember  then,  in  the  last  hour,"  continued  Gott- 
reich,  "  that  pure  being  with  whom  thy  life  was  beautiful 
and  great,  —  with  whom  thou  hast  wept  tears  of  joy,  with 
whom  thou  hast  prayed  to  God,  and  in  whom  God  ap- 
peared unto  thee,  in  whom  thou  didst  find  the  first  and 
last  heart  of  love,  —  and  then  close  thine  eyes  in  peace  ! " 

On  a  sudden  the  clouds  were  cleft  into  two  huge,  black 
mountains,  and  the  deep  sun  looked  forth  from  between 
them,  as  it  were  out  of  a  valley  between  buttresses  of 
rock,  gazing  upon  the  earth  with  its  joy-glistening  eye. 

"  See ! "  said  the  dying  man,  "  what  a  glare  ! " 

"  It  is  the  evening  sun,  father." 

"  Ay,  this  day  shall  we  see  one  another  again  !  "  con- 
tinued the  old  man  ;  but  he  spoke  of  his  wife,  who  was 
long  since  dead. 

The  son  was  unable,  from  his  emotion,  to  paint  to  his 
father  the  blessedness  of  meeting  again  upon  the  earth, 
which  he  had  that  very  day  enjoyed  by  anticipation  and 
described  upon  his  journey ;  or  to  say  to  him  how  it 
comes,  that  meeting  again  is  a  renewal  of  love  in  a  better 
state ;  and  that,  if  the  first  meeting  was  apt  to  overflow 
into  the  future,  reminiscence  binds  the  flowers  of  the 
present  and  the  fruits  of  the  past  upon  one  stem. 

Who  could  have  courage  to  speak  of  the  joys  of  earthly 
meeting  to  one  who  seemed  to  be  already  in  the  contem- 
plation of  a  meeting  in  heaven  ? 

Startled,  he  asked,  "  Father,  what  ails  thee  ?  " 

"  I  do  think  thereon  in  the  dark  hour  ;  ay,  thereon  and 
thereupon  again ;  and  death  is  also  beautiful,  and  the 
parting  in  Christ,"  murmured  to  himself  the  old  man,  as 
he  tried  to   take    Gottreich's   hand,  which  he   had  not 


REMINISCENCES.  363 

strength  to  press.  It  was  but  the  usual  nervous  snatching 
of  the  fingers  of  the  dying.  He  continued  to  think  that 
his  son  was  still  speaking  to  him,  and  said,  more  and  more 
distinctly  and  emphatically,  "  O  thou  blessed  God  !  "  until 
all  the  other  luminaries  of  life  were  extinguished,  and  in 
his  soul  there  stood  nothing  but  the  one  sun,  —  God ! 

At  length  he  raised  himself,  and,  stretching  out  his  arm 
forcibly,  exclaimed  :  "  There  are  three  fair  rainbows  over 
the  evening  sun  ;  I  must  go  after  the  sun,  and  pass 
through  with  him  !  "    He  then  fell  back,  and  all  was  over. 

At  that  moment  the  sun  went  down,  and  there  glim- 
mered at  his  setting  a  broad  rainbow  in  the  east. 

"  He  is  gone ! "  said  Gottreich  to  Justa,  in  a  voice 
choked  with  grief ;  "  but  he  is  gone  from  us  unto  his 
God,  in  the  midst  of  great,  pious,  and  unmingled  joy ; 
then  weep  no  more,  Justa ! " 

At  that  moment  his  own  hitherto  restrained  tears  found 
a  vent,  and  he  pressed  the  dead  hand  against  his  face. 

It  grew  dark,  and  a  warm  rain  distilled  gently  over  the 
earth.  The  children  left  his  motionless  form  alone,  and 
wept  more  tranquilly  for  that  sun  of  their  love,  which, 
with  its  pure  light,  had  withdrawn  from  the  clouds  and 
tempests  of  the  world  to  another  dawn. 


THE    XEW-YEAR'S    NIGHT    OF   AX 
UXHAPPY    MAX.  • 


X  old  man  stood  in  the  Xew- Year's  night  at 

.^^  .    ''^^  window,  and  gazed  with  a  look  of  rest- 

^/  k'a\    ^^^  despair  upon  the  immutable,  ever-blooming 

heaven,  and  out  over  the  still  pure  white  earth 


1..:  ::  on  there  was  now  no  one  so  joyless  and  sleepless 
as  he.  For  his  grave  stood  near  to  him.  It  was  covered 
onlj  with  the  snow  of  age,  not  with  the  green  of  youth ; 
and  he  brought  with  him  thither  out  of  his  whole  rich  life 
nothing  but  errors  and  sins  and  sickness  ;  a  ruined  body, 
a  desolated  soul,  a  breast  full  of  poison,  an  old  age  full  of 
remorse.  The  fair  days  of  his  youth  wandered  about  him 
now  like  ghosts,  and  they  bore  him  back  again  to  that 
clear  morning  when  his  father  first  placed  him  at  the 
cross-road  of  life,  the  right  hand  leading  by  the- sunny 
ways  of  virtue  into  a  wide,  peaceful  land,  fuU  of  light 
and  of  harvests ;  the  left,  down  into  the  mole-ways  of 
vice  towards  a  black  cavern,  full  of  down-dropping  poi- 
son, full  of  darting  serpents  and  dark  sultry  damps. 

Ah !  the  serpents  hung  about  his  breast,  and  the  poison- 
drops  upon  his  tongue,  and  he  knew  now  where  he  was. 

Knowing  not  what  he  did.  and  with  unspeakable  grief, 
he  cried  our  to  Heaven  :  -  Give  me  mv  vouth  once  more ! 


NEW-YEAR'S    NIGHT.  365 

O  father,  place  me  again  upon  the  cross-road,  that  I  may 
choose  otherwise  !  " 

But  his  father  and  his  youth  were  long  gone.  He  saw 
wandering  lights  dancing  on  the  marshes,  and  dying  out 
upon  God's  Acre,  and  he  said,  "  These  are  my  sinful 
days  !  "  He  saw  a  star  fly  out  from  heaven,  to  glimmer 
in  its  fall,  and  to  be  extinguished  on  the  earth.  "That 
is  I,"  said  his  bleeding  heart;  and  the  serpent-teeth  of 
remorse  gnawed  again  into  his  wounds. 

His  burning  fancy  showed  him  creeping  night-wander- 
ers upon  the  roofs,  and  the  windmill  threw  up  its  arms 
threatening  to  crush  him,  and  a  mask  left  behind  in  the 
dead-house  assumed  by  degrees  his  own  feature. 

Suddenly,  in  the  midst  of  this  tumult,  music  for  the 
New  Year  flowed  down  from  the  tower,  like  distant 
church-song.  He  was  deeply  moved.  He  looked  around 
the  horizon  and  over  the  wide  earth,  and  thought  of  his 
youthful  friends,  who  now,  happier  and  better  than  he, 
were  teachers  for  the  world,  fathers  of  happy  children, 
and  favored  men,  and  he  said,  "  0,  I  also  could  be  happy, 
dear  parents,  had  I  fulfilled  your  New- Year's  wishes  and 
instructions." 

In  the  feverish  memories  of  his  youth,  it  seemed  to  him 
that  the  mask  with  his  features  raised  itself  up  in  the 
dead-house ;  finally,  through  the  superstition  which  dis- 
cerns spirits  and  the  future  on  New- Year's  night,  it  be- 
came a  living  youth,  in  the  position  of  the  beautiful  boy 
of  the  Capitol,  pulling  out  a  thorn,  and  his  formerly 
blooming  face  danced  weird  and  bitter  before  him. 

He  could  look  no  more  :  he  covered  his  eyes :  hot  tears 
streamed  down  upon  the  snow  ;  —  again  he  softly  sighed, 
hopeless  and  unconscious,  "  Come  again,  0  youth,  come 


asam 


!» 


366  }ivEW-Ti:AS-S    yiZHT 

And  it  eanr  -\~.\iz                         I-      - 1     ys  n^it  lie 

bad  obIj  drr  He  was  sdSk  a  jondi ; 

jet  Ids  enor  -  Bat  he  thanked  God 

tint;  be,  stiL  .        .                      f  ^yjm  tbe  figal  Mmj9 

of  Tke^  and  1  wbicfa  leads  to 

Ac  har  land  "^  O  70lId^ 

ifdun^aiki  J:Js  ft^itfid 


one  day  eat  "  -  -^aiii-  O  beantifbl 


THE   DEATH   OF   AN   ANGEL. 


HE  tenderest  and  kindest  angel,  the  Angel  of 
the  last  hour,  whom  we  harshly  call  Death,  is 
sent  to  us,  that  he  may  mildly  and  gently  pluck 
away  the  sinking  heart  of  man  from  life,  and 
bear  it  unhurt  in  his  warm  hands  out  of  the  cold  breast 
into  high,  warming  Eden.  His  brother  is  the  Angel  of 
the  first  hour,  who  twice  kisses  man,  —  once  when  he 
begins  this  life ;  and  again,  when  he  awakes  on  high, 
without  wounds,  and  enters  smiling  upon  the  other  hfe, 
as  he  came  weeping  into  this. 

As  the  Angel  of  the  last  hour  saw  the  battle-fields 
stretched  before  him,  full  of  blood  and  tears,  and  drew  the 
trembling  souls  away,  his  mild  eyes  melted,  and  he  said : 
"  Ah !  I  will  once  die  like  man,  that  I  may  enter  into 
his  last  agony,  and  soothe  it  when  I  dissolve  the  ties 
of  life!" 

The  boundless  circle  of  angels,  who  love  each  other 
above,  pressed  around  the  sympathetic  one,  and  promised 
their  beloved  to  surround  him  with  heavenly  rays  after 
the  instant  of  his  death;  thereby  he  might  know  that 
death  had  been ;  and  his  brother,  whose  kiss  opens  our 
cold  lips,  as  the  morning  light  does  the  chill  flowers, 
gently  touched  his  forehead,  and  said:  "When  I  kiss 


368       THE  DEATH  OF  AN  ANGEL. 

thee  again,  my  brother,  thou  shalt  have  died  upon  the 
earth,  and  will  be  again  with  us." 

Loving  and  moved,  the  Angel  descended  to  the  battle- 
field, where  only  one  beautiful,  ardent  Youth  still  panted, 
and  heaved  his  shattered  breast.  Near  the  hero  stood 
his  Betrothed  alone.  He  could  no  longer  feel  her  hot 
tears,  and  her  sorrow  passed  him  unrecognized,  like  a 
distant  battle-cry.  —  Then  the  Angel  quickly  clothed  him- 
self in  her  dear  form,  rested  by  him,  drew  the  wounded 
soul  with  one  hot  kiss  out  of  the  cloven  breast,  and  gave 
it  to  his  brother  on  high,  who  kissed  it  for  the  second 
time,  when  suddenly  it  smiled. 

The  Angel  of  the  last  hour  passed  like  a  Hghtning- 
flash  into  the  deserted  frame,  shone  through  the  body, 
and  stirred  the  warm  life-stream  again  with  the  strength- 
ened heart.  But  how  was  he  affected  by  this  new  cloth- 
ing of  the  body !  His  clear  eye  became  confused  in  the 
whirl  of  unwonted,  nervous  life  ;  —  his  once  flying  thought 
waded"  now  slowly  through  the  atmosphere  of  his  brain, 
—  the  moist,  faint-hued  vapor  dried  away  from  all  objects 
which  formerly  hung,  autumnal-like,  floating  over  them ; 
now  they  pierced  him  out  of  the  hot  air  with  burning, 
painful  spots  of  color,  —  all  sensations  became  more 
gloomy,  yet  stormier  and  more  nearly  alUed  to  self; 
and  they  seemed  to  him  to  be  Hke  instinct,  as  those  of 
the  beasts  appear  to  us.  Hunger  tore  him,  thirst  con- 
sumed him,  pain  stabbed  him.  Alas  !  his  breast,  torn 
and  bleeding,  heaved  upward,  and  his  first  breath  drawn 
was  his  first  sigh  aiter  the  heaven  he  had  left !  "  Is  this 
the  death  of  man  ?  "  he  thought ;  but  as  he  did  not  see  the 
promised  token  of  death,  neither  angel  nor  the  surround- 
ing heavenly  flame,  therefore  he  perceived  this  to  be  only 
the  life  of  man. 


THE  DEATH  OF  AN  ANGEL.       369 

In  the  evening,  the  earthly  strength  of  the  Angel  de- 
clined, and  a  crushing  globe  seemed  to  revolve  about  his 
head.  Then  Sleep  sent  his  messengers.  Images  of  the 
mind  shifted  out  of  the  sunshine  into  a  misty  fire ;  the 
shadows  of  the  day  were  thrown  upon  his  brain ;  they 
came  confused,  and  colossal,  one  upon  another,  and  the 
world  of  sense  reared  itself  uncontrolled  and  poured  in 
upon  him.  Then  Dream  sent  his  messengers.  Finally 
the  funereal  veil  of  Sleep  wrapped  itself  thickly  about 
him,  and,  sunk  in  the  vault  of  night,  he  lay  there  lonely 
and  motionless,  like  us  poor  mortals.  But  then,  thou, 
heavenly  Dream  !  didst  descend,  with  thy  thousand  re- 
flecting-glasses  before  his  soul,  and  didst  show  in  all  of 
them  a  circle  of  angels  and  a  radiant  heaven ;  and  the 
earthly  body  seemed  to  fall  away  from  him  with  all  its 
thorns.  "  Ah !  "  said  he,  in  vain  rapture,  "  my  sleep  was 
also  my  death."  Yet  when  he  awoke  again,  with  his 
compressed  heart  full  of  heavy  human  blood,  and  looked 
out  upon  the  earth  and  upon  the  night,  he  cried,  "  I  saw 
the  angels  and  the  starry  heavens ;  but  it  was  only  the 
image  of  Death,  and  not  his  presence." 

The  Betrothed  of  the  translated  hero  did  not  mark 
that  an  angel  only  dwelt  in  the  breast  of  her  beloved ; 
yet  she  loved  the  purified  aspect  of  the  wounded  soul, 
and  still  gladly  held  the  hand  of  him  who  had  past  so 
far  away.  But  the  Angel  loved  her  deceived  heart  with 
the  love  of  a  man's  soul  in  return ;  jealous  of  his  own  na- 
ture, he  wished  that  he  might  not  die  before  her,  but  love 
her  so  long  that  she  might  forgive  him,  when  they  met  again 
in  heaven,  for  having  clasped  together  upon  her  breast  an 
angel  and  a  lover.  Yet  she  died  sooner ;  the  late  sorrow 
had  bowed  the  head  of  this  flower  too  low,  and  it  lay  broken 
upon  the  grave.  She  sank  before  the  weeping  Angel,  not 
16*  X 


370  THE    DEATH    OF    AN   ANGEL. 

like  the  sun,  who  before  afl-beholding  Xatore  casts  him- 
self so  gorgeous  into  the  sea  that  its  red  waves  strike  the 
very  heaven,  bm  like  the  tranquil  moon,  who.  in  the  mid- 
nighti  silvers  the  vaporous  air,  and  sinks  down  imseen 
behind  its  dim  veiL  Death  sent  his  gentler  sister  Uncon- 
sciousness before ;  she  touched  the  heart  of  the  Betrothed, 
and  chilled  the  warm  counienanee ;  the  flowers  of  her 
cheek  withered ;  the  pale  snow  of  winter,  under  whidi 
the  spring  of  eternity  grows  green,  clothed  her  forehead 
and  her  hands.  Then  a  burning  tear  broke  from  the 
swelling  eje  of  the  Angel,  and,  while  he  thought  his 
heart  kx^ed  itself  in  the  form  of  a  tear  as  a  pearl  from 
the  brittle  shelL  his  Betrothed,  awaked  to  the  last  de- 
lirium, moved  her  eyes  once  again,  drew  him  close  to 
her  heart,  and  died  as  she  kissed  him,  and  said,  ^2sow 
I  am  with  thee,  my  brother !  ~  Then  the  Angel  beheved 
his  heavenly  brother  had  given  him  the  sign  of  the  kiss 
amd  death.  Yet  no  radiant  heaven  surrounde^i  him,  nor 
aught  but  funereal  darkness,  and  he  sighed  because  this 
was  not  his  death,  only  the  anguish  of  man  over  the  death 
of  another. 

*•  O  ye  affliaed  mortals  I "  he  cried,  *•  how  can  ye  weary 
ones  survive  this!  How  can  ye  become  old  when  the 
circle  of  youthful  forms  breaks  and  hes  at  length  alto- 
gether scattered  artmnd,  —  when  the  graves  of  your 
jfiriends  lead  down  like  steps  to  your  oweu  —  and  when 
3^  becomes  like  the  silent,  blank  evening  hour  of  a  cold 
battle-field!  O  ye  poor  mortals!  how  can  your  hearts 
endure  it?" 

The  body  of  the  translated  hero-soul  placed  the  gentle 
Angel  among  hard  men,  their  injustice,  and  the  distor- 
ticMis  of  Tice  and  of  Passion  ;  about  his  figure,  also,  was 
laid  the  thorny  girdle  of  sceptres  bound  together,  which 


THE    DEATH    OF    AN    ANGEL.  371 

compresses  the  hemispheres  with  its  stings,  and  which  is 
always  laced  more  tightly  by  the  great ;  he  saw  tlie  claws 
of  crowned  and  emblazoned  beasts  fasten  themselves  on 
their  displumed  prey,  and  heard  it  panting  with  enfeebled 
beating  of  the  wings ;  he  saw  the  whole  terrestrial  globe 
encircled  in  the  winding  swarthy  folds  of  the  giant-ser- 
pent, Vice,  plunging  and  conceahng  its  poisonous  head  deep 
in  the  breast  of  man.  Then  the  hot  sting  of  enmity  was 
made  to  shoot  through  that  tender  heart,  which,  durino- 
a  long  eternity,  had  lain  in  the  warmth  of  angelic  love, 
and  the  holy  love-fed  spirit  was  forced  to  shudder  over 
an  inward  dissolution.  "  Ah  !  "  said  he,  "  the  death  of 
man  is  full  of  woe ! "  Yet  this  was  not  death ;  for  no 
angel  appeared. 

Thus  in  a  few  days  he  became  weary  of  this  life  which 
we  bear  for  half  a  hundred  years,  and  he  longed  to  go 
back.  The  evening  sun  attracted  his  kindred  spirit. 
The  wounds  of  his  shattered  breast  exhausted  him  with 
pain.  He  went  out  with  the  evening  glow  upon  his 
pale  cheeks  to  "  God's  Acre,"  that  green  background  of 
our  life,  where  the  forms  which  he  had  once  stripped 
of  all  their  beautiful  souls  were  now  crumbling  away. 
He  placed  himself  with  sorrowful  longing  upon  the  bare 
grave  of  his  unspeakably  beloved  and  departed  bride, 
and  looked  towards  the  fading  evening  sun.  Seated  on 
this  dear  knoll,  he  regarded  his  suffering  body,  and 
thought :  Thou  also,  tender  breast,  wouldst  be  lying  here 
in  decay,  and  wouldst  give  no  more  pain,  did  I  not  sup- 
port thee.  Then  he  reflected  upon  the  grievous  life  of 
man,  and  the  throbs  of  the  wounded  breast  showed  him 
the  pangs  with  which  mortals  purchase  their  virtue  and 
their  death,  and  which  he  had  joyfully  spared  the  noble 
soul  of  this  body.     Deeply  touched  by  human  virtue,  he 


372  THE    DEATH    OF    AN    ANGEL. 

"wept  out  of  his  boundless  love  for  men,  who,  amid  the 
craving  of  their  own  needs,  under  low-hung  clouds,  behind 
mists  which  stream  over  the  sharp-cutting  paths  of  life, 
never  turn  away  from  the  lofty  star  of  duty,  but  in  their 
darkness  stretch  out  loving  arms  towards  every  suffering 
breast  they  encounter,  while  around  them  nothing  glim- 
mers but  the  hope  of  setting  like  the  sun  in  the  old  world, 
in  order  to  arise  in  the  new. 

Just  then  the  ecstasy  opened  his  wounds,  and  blood, 
the  tear  of  the  soul,  flowed  from  his  heart  upon  the 
cherished  knoD,  —  the  dissolving  body  sank  quietly  to- 
wards his  beloved,  —  tears  of  rapture  broke  the  sunset 
light  into  a  rosy,  swimming  sea,  —  distant  echoing  tones, 
as  of  the  earth  passing  wide  through  ringing  ether, 
played  in  the  vaporous  lustre.  Then  a  dark  cloud  or 
short  night  shot  by  the  Angel,  and  was  full  of  sleep; 
and  now  a  radiant  heaven  opened  and  overspread  him, 
and  a  thousand  angels  shone  around.  '•'  Art  thou  again 
here,  thou  deceiving  dream  ?  "  he  said.  But  the  Angel 
of  the  first  hour  stepped  through  the  rays  to  him,  and 
gave  the  sign  of  the  kiss,  and  said :  "  That  was  death, 
thou  immortal  brother  and  heavenly  friend !  " 

And  the  Youth  and  his  beloved  softly  repeated  the 
words. 


:^^S^ 


A   DREAM   AND   THE   TRUTH. 

WRITTEN    ON    THE    DEATH    OF    A    MOTHER    FOLLOWING 
THAT  OF  HER  HUSBAND. 


LEEP  buries  the  first  world,  its  nights  and 
sorrows,  and  brings  to  us  a  second  world,  with 
the  forms  we  have  loved  and  lost,  and  scenes 
too  vast  for  this  little  earth. 
I  was  in  the  Isle  of  the  Blest,  in  the  second  world. 
This  I  dreamed.  The  stars  were  nearer;  the  heaven- 
blue  lay  on  the  flowers ;  all  the  breezes  were  melodious 
tones ;  and  repose  and  ravishment,  which  with  us  are  sun- 
dered, there  dwelt  conjoined.  And  the  dead,  from  around 
whom  had  fallen  that  mist  of  life  which  veiled  the  higher 
heaven  before,  rested  like  mild  evening  suns  in  the  azure 
ether. 

Then,  behold,  the  earth  rose  out  of  the  deep  beneath, 
on  her  course,  and  the  Spring  had  covered  her  with  his 
blossoms  and  buds.  As  she  drew  nearer  to  the  Isle  of 
the  Blest,  a  voice  full  of  love  cried,  "  Look  down,  ye 
dead,  on  your  old  home,  and  see  the  beloved  who  have 
lost,  but  not  forgotten  you.'* 

For  in  the  spring  the  earth  always  passes  by  the  eter- 
nal World  of  the  Blest,  whose  off-cast  husk  sinks  into  its 
clods  ;  and  therefore  it  is,  that  in  the  spring  poor  mortals 


374  A  DREAM  AND   THE   TRUTH. 

experience  such  a  profound  longing,  so  powerful  a  pre- 
sentiment, and  so  many  haunting  recollections  of  their 
lost  beloved. 

After  the  voice,  all  the  Blest  stepped  forward  on  the 
shore  of  the  Supernal  Isle,  and  each  one  sought  on  the 
wan  earth  the  heart  which  had  remembered  him.  One 
noble  being  gazed  down,  seeking  after  his  spouse  and 
after  his  children,  around  whom  the  glad  spring-tide  of 
earth  was  flowing ;  but  they  had  no  spring. 

Alas  !  the  father  now  saw  his  wife  racked  with  an- 
guish, and  his  children  dissolved  in  tears.  He  discerned, 
in  the  strangling  hand  of  Pain,  the  paUid  form  whose 
convulsed  heart  now  reposes,  and  whose  moistened  eyes 
are  now  shut  and  cold  ;  and  beside  it  he  recognized  the 
loving  companion  of  his  former  life  fatally  bleeding  on 
the  thorns  of  eartlJy  martyrdom.  And  as  sorrow,  with 
glowing  iron  stylus,  graved  in  the  crumbling  image  life's 
farewell  letter,  and  as  she  lost  hope,  but  not  yet  patience, 
and  as  her  fading  eye  desired  no  further  happiness  save 
that  of  her  children,  and  as  these  could  only  share,  but 
not  remove,  the  sleepless  nights  of  their  mother,  the 
affectionate  father  sank  down,  weeping,  and  prayed : 
'•  Eternal  One,  suffer  her  to  die  I  Break  the  agonized 
bosom,  and  give  me  my  friend  again,  and  heal  the 
wounded  form  at  last  under  the  earth.  Eternal  One, 
suffer  her  to  die  !  " 

And  as  he  prayed,  the  weary  heart  here  in  its  martyr- 
life  heard  him,  and  his  faithful  wife  returned  forever  to 
his  heart.  Why  weep  ye,  tender  children,  that  your 
parents,  after  the  same  sufferings,  should  now  have  the 
same  joys  ?  that  now,  after  their  winter  of  Hfe,  an  ever- 
lasting ;May  has  dawned  on  their  souls  ?  Does  the 
painted  spring-house  under   the   earth   trouble   you,  or 


A  DREAM  AND   THE   TRUTH. 


375 


the  black  boundar}^-hill  on  the  earth,  or  the  dread,  hand 
of  decay,  which  extinguishes  earthly  scars  and  wounds 
and  the  whole  body? 

No,  let  the  Spring  scatter  his  flowers  on  their  cold 
faces,  and  dry  the  tears  on  yours ;  and  when  you  think 
painfully  of  them,  comfort  yourselves  with  saying,  "  We 
tenderly  loved  them,  and  no  one  has  wounded,  save  He 
who  now  heals  them." 


THE  BEAUTY  OF  DEATH  IN  THE 
BLOOM  OF  YOUTH. 

N  the  lives  both  of  men  and  of  women,  the 
period  of  the  deepest  happiness  will  be  found 
to  be,  not  that  of  childhood,  but  of  youth.  The 
joys  of  childliood  are  like  the  spring  flowers, 
—  beautiful,  but  small ;  like  the  tinted  forget-me-not,  — 
pretty,  but  without  fragrance.  The  higher  and  more 
brilliant  joys  of  knowledge  and  the  affections  are  as  yet 
undeveloped ;  the  world  of  the  ideal  lies  wrapped,  as  it 
were,  in  a  dark-green  bud. 

"With  what  other  and  what  brighter  radiance  is  the 
period  of  youth  encircled  !  —  that  heavenly  time  of  our 
first  friendship  and  our  first  love,  —  of  our  first  poem 
and  our  first  philosophy,  —  of  our  first  full  enjoyment  of 
nature  and  music  and  the  drama,  —  of  our  first  castles 
in  the  air,  and  our  first  vigorous  training  for  active  life. 
And  this  period  is  not  simply  irrecoverable,  —  that  is 
the  case  with  all  past  time,  —  but  for  the  very  reason 
that  in  its  perfect  bloom  its  only  office  is  to  minister  to 
the  fruits  it  so  beautifully  enfolds,  it  is  the  highest  and 
the  culminating  period  ;  for  there  is  necessarily  a  greater 
productive  force  present  in  the  process  than  in  the  results 
of  development,  in  the  flower  of  youth  than  in  the  ripe- 
ness of  manhood.     In  his  more  advanced  years,  one  is 


THE    BEAUTY    OF    DEATH.  377 

seldom  led  to  enter  upon  a  new  path  of  knowledge  or 
a  higher  moral  life  ;  but  in  his  youth,  one  gives  himself 
up,  with  inextinguishable  fire,  to  some  system  of  philos- 
ophy, or  some  total  change  in  his  moral  life.  It  calls  for 
more  strength  in  a  man  to  be  converted  than  to  stand 
still. 

As  the  highest  bodily  strength  and  the  most  perfect 
health,  the  probability  of  the  longest  life  and  the  greatest 
beauty,  —  in  short,  the  best  bodily  attributes,  —  belong 
to  the  period  of  youth,  so,  and  for  that  very  reason,  the 
intellectual  wealth  which  comes  not  by  acquisition,  but 
by  inheritance,  is  the  largest.  Great  attainments,  expe- 
rience, and  skill  are  certainly  the  fruits  of  age  and  of 
labor ;  but  what  are  these  things,  compared  with  the 
ideal  enjoyments  which  come  of  the  first  sciences  we 
study,  when  the  tree  of  knowledge,  grafted  upon  the  tree 
of  life,  puts  forth  its  branches,  —  compared  with  the  de- 
light with  which  the  new  truths  of  geometry,  or  of  phi- 
losophy, or  of  any  favorite  science  new-born  to  us,  fill  the 
soul  ?  For  even  in  science,  however  far  its  limits  may 
be  pushed,  one  is  ever  descending  from  the  height  of  the 
ideal  to  the  vulgar  level  of  reality. 

Youth  is  the  full  moon,  illumined  by  the  magic  light 
of  the  sun.  Age  is  the  new  moon,  upon  which  the  day- 
earth  (life)  throws  a  meagre  light. 

A   DREAM   OF  A   BATTLE-FIELD. 

I  DREAMED  that  from  far  off  in  the  darkness! 
heard  groans  which  seemed  to  come  from  every  quar- 
ter to  which  I  turned.  At  length  they  came  only  out  of 
the  gate  of  a  valley  which  led  between  two  rocky  ridges, 
where  the  darkness  was  illumined  only  by  the  red  light 


378  THE    BEAUTY    OF    DEATH 

of  a  comet,  with  its  sparkling  eye,  and  its  tail  sweeping 
back  and  forth  like  that  of  a  tiger  thirsty  for  blood.  Then 
several  wagons,  filled  with  amputated  hands  grasping  one 
the  other  either  in  prayer  or  struggle,  came  softly  towards 
me  on  unrevolving  wheels  ;  and  one  small  wagon  also, 
full  of  eyes  without  eyelids,  which  grimly  gazed  upon  and 
miiTored  one  another.  A  long  metal  coffin,  mounted  on 
the  wheels  of  a  gun-carriage,  was  with  difficulty  pulled 
along  by  iron  elephants.  On  it  was  inscribed,  "  The 
ashes  of  the  tenth  army."  With  frightful  exertion  it  was 
dragged  like  a  tall  tree  round  the  corner  of  the  narrow, 
rocky  valley,  —  forced  to  bend  by  the  weight  of  its  con- 
tents, and  the  end  of  it  seeming  never  to  come. 

Over  the  earth,  and  the  sorrow  of  it,  was  a  round  ball 
of  fire  like  a  sun,  whence  came  incessant  flashes  of  light- 
ning. And  thirsty  people  opened  vessels  full  of  vipers, 
which  darted  out,  and  stung  them  to  more  burning  thirst. 

A  crown,  great  like  a  shield,  and  red-hot,  came 

whirling  down  with  circular  motion  into  a  group  of  sol- 
diers dancing,  and  scattered  them.  Upon  still-gaping 
wounds  it  rained  down  thistles,  which  took  root  quickly 
and  grew ;  and  upon  every  fallen  corpse  struck  a  thunder- 
bolt, and  slew  it  again.  I  looked  up  to  the  heavens  for 
consolation ;  but  there,  in  the  place  of  the  sunset's  glow, 
and  the  colors  of  the  dawn,  and  the  northern  lights,  was 
smoking  blood.  Swift  as  an  arrow,  villages  and  cities 
shot  through  the  air  like  long  clouds  of  ashes  ;  some  few 
streets  only,  which  had  been  blown  up  by  mining,  hang- 
ing fast  in  the  sky,  with  the  remnants  of  houses  and  of 
men  clinging  to  them.  On  a  neighboring  mountain  were 
glaciers  and  ice-peaks,  upon  which  children  were  trans- 
fixed ;  and  on  the  distant  summits,  whence  one  could  look 
down  upon  the  battle-field,  were  parents  and  children  and 
brides,  eagerly  gazing  upon  a  mirror  held  over  it. 


IN    THE    BLOOM    OF    YOUTH.  379 

At  length  the  gate  sprang  open,  and  broke  in  pieces 
on  the  battle-field,  and  the  storm  of  woe  burst  forth. 
Then  I  looked  in  upon  that  terrible  world,  and  fell  sense- 
less to  the  earth ;  for  what  I  saw  was  too  horrible  for 
man  to  look  upon  or  to  remember. 

Gradually  it  seemed  to  me  in  my  swoon  as  if  this 
frightful  field  was  moving  further  and  further  off,  while 
its  sounds  of  horror  died  away  into  songs  of  swans.  And 
out  of  the  distance  floated  up  to  me,  on  the  gentle 
breezes,  the  tones  of  shepherd's  flutes,  —  now  far  off, 
now  near,  —  breaking,  at  length,  with  full  sound  upon 
my  ear.  And  then  I  was  lifted  up  and  borne  along  on 
wings  of  ether,  with  the  light  breaking  through  my  closed 
eyelids.  And  a  creative  finger  touched  me,  and  high  in 
heaven,  upon  a  green  cloud,  I  opened  my  eyes.  Above 
me  was  the  blue  abyss  of  the  stars  ;  below  me  stretched 
a  blue  ocean,  on  whose  horizon  glittered,  in  the  glow  of 
the  sunset,  the  countless  islands  of  the  blessed ;  around 
me  floated  scattered  cloudlets,  tinted  with  the  red  and 
white  of  roses  and  of  lilies,  and  with  the  many  colors 
of  manifold  flowers. 

"Who,  O  God,  has  brought  me  to  life  out  of  my 
woe  ?  "  I  cried. 

"  Child  of  man,  it  is  my  Father  who  has  done  it,"  an- 
swered a  soft  voice  very  near  me.  But  I  saw  no  form 
of  any  person  ;  only  a  halo  of  glory  hovering  near  me 
indicated  the  place  of  the  invisible  being. 

Under  the  stars  now,  on  high,  rose  again,  like  the 
songs  of  the  spheres,  the  old  mournful  tones.  The  islands 
on  the  horizon  began  to  move,  and  swim  in  joy  around 
one  another.  Many  of  them  dipped  into  the  dark  waves, 
and  came  up  again  brilliant  as  the  colors  of  the  morning. 
Some  went  down  into  the  sea,  and  reappeared  covered 


380  THE    BEAUTY    OF    DEATH 

Avitli  pearls.  But  one  of  tliem,  crowned  with  cedars  and 
palms  and  oaks,  with  strong  young  giants  on  its  shores, 
went  straight  out  into  the  ocean,  toward  the  east. 

"  Am  I  upon  earth  ?  "  I  inquired. 

"  Ask  me  not,"  replied  the  voice,  "  for  I  know  all  thy 
thoughts,  and  will  answer  thee  in  thy  heart.  Thou  wilt 
be  upon  the  earth  when  it  rises  in  the  east  from  the  sea ; 
beneath  the  sea  it  circles  swiftly  round  the  sun.  The  sea 
of  time  is  the  wave  on  the  ocean  of  eternity." 

As  if  borne  upon  a  stream,  the  cedar  island  came  ever 
nearer  to  the  green  cloud.  Youths  gi'eater  than  those 
of  earth  looked  down  upon  the  blue  sea,  and  sang  songs 
of  gladness,  —  or  gazed  in  rapture  upon  the  heavens,  and 
folded  their  hands  in  prayer,  —  or  slumbered  in  arbors 
of  rainbows  and  tears  of  joy.  Behind  them  stood  lions  ; 
above  them  circled  eagles. 

"  Upon  the  cedar  island  dwell  men  ivho,  lihe  me,  have 
died  for  the  earth ;  but  in  earthly  faces  shall  it  be  re- 
vealed to  thee  how  the  Infinite  Father  rewards  those  who 
have  shed  their  blood  for  their  country.  The  youths  who 
are  looking  down  into  the  waves  have  a- nearer  view  of 
their  old  earth  moving  in  the  waters,  as  the  island  moves 
with  it.  They  see  only  happy  countries,  and  their  friends 
who  rejoice  in  their  deeds,  and  posterity  which  praises 
them.  And  every  flower  which  sprang  from  their  blood 
is  shown  to  them  of  God. 

"  Those  who  are  gazing  up  to  heaven,  and  praying, 
see  an  altar  upon  every  sun,  —  and  greater  brethren  who 
make  higher  sacrifices  to  the  Highest,;  and  they  are  en- 
treating the  Father  to  summon  them  also  to  still  higher 
sacrifices.     And  when  he  thunders,  he  calls  them. 

"  Those  who  are  slumbering  in  tears  of  joy  ai'e  seeing 
their  brother  soldiers  dying  bravely,  and  are  comforting 


IN    THE    BLOOM    OF    YOUTH.  381 

tliem  in  death,  and  welcoming  them  in  tearful  recognition 
as  they  pass  fi-om  the  earth  to  the  island." 

And  now  white  flowers  floated  up  from  the  earth  to 
the  surface  of  the  sea,  and  all  the  sleepers  awoke.  The 
flowers  were  the  souls  of  their  mothers,  who  in  death 
were  following  their  sons  fallen  upon  the  battle-field ;  and 
the  flowers  became  angels  and  flew  towards  the  youths. 
It  was  an  endless  dying  of  endless  joy.  The  soft  mur- 
murs of  love  from  those  who  thus  again  found  one  an- 
other stirred  the  lilies  and  the  roses  to  sounds  as  of  harps. 
But  as  the  mothers  breathed  the  vibrating  air  and  their 
hearts  beat  tremulously  in  harmony  with  the  sound,  they 
died  away  and  exhaled  into  a  flower-cloud.  And  the 
cloud  arose  and  floated  along  the  heavens  to  the  distant 
islands  where  dwell  the  good  mothers  and  the  happy 
brides,  longing  still  for  the  time  when  all  the  islands  of 
the  blessed  were  one  fixed  land  of  promise. 

"  Ye  sons  of  men,  joy  is  an  eternity  older  than  pain, 
and  ever  will  be  so,  —  for  that  has  scarcely  existed. 
Sacrifice  ye,  then,  time  to  eternity." 

A  noble  old  man  with  the  martyr's  crown  on  his  head 
looked  up  to  the  green  cloud  and  prayed  to  the  voice 
near  me.  Then  saw  I  mirrored  in  the  old  man's  eyes  the 
form  of  the  being  near  me.  And  my  heart  was  humbled 
before  the  greatest  man  of  earth  as  he  repeated  to  me 
again  the  words,  "  Sacrifice  time  to  eternity." 

And  now  there  came  up  from  the  sea  near  the  cedar 
island  a  smoke  as  of  a  volcano,  but  throwing  out  only 
crowns  of  oak-leaves  and  palm-branches  and  streams  of 
light.  And  at  length  a  vast  altar  covered  with  young 
men  and  old,  sleeping,  rose  from  the  waves.  But  when 
the  light  of  heaven  touched  the  sleepers  they  awoke  sud- 
denly, and,  rushing  upon  the  island,  fell  upon  the  breasts 


3^2  THE    BEAUTY    OF    DEATH 

of  theii-  old  comrades  in  arms.  And  the  stars  of  heaven 
shone  over  them  in  glad,  undying  token  of  their  union. 
The  oak-forests  rustled  and  the  lions  roared  and  the 
eagles,  qircling  in  the  air,  bathed  themselves  for  joy  in 
the  fire  and  the  lightning  -svhich  shot  from  the  stars. 
And  the  storm  spread  itself  over  the  universe,  and  scat- 
tered balls  of  fire  like  suns,  and  thundered  as  with  the 
noise  of  many  worlds,  and  mingled  its  hot  tears  of  joy 
with  those  of  the  heroes.  And  from  below  the  sea  came 
a  dull  echo  from  the  earth.  Then  the  cloud  sank  upon 
the  island,  and  with  a  rushing  sound  received  up  into 
itself  the  heroes  who  had  prayed  to  the  Father  to  permit 
them  to  sacrifice  in  higher  worlds. 

When  the  storm  had  disappeai-ed  with  them  behind 
the  stars,  the  vastness  of  creation  appeared.  All  being 
rejoiced  in  eternity.  The  worlds  lay  along  the  heavens 
like  an  Alpine  chain ;  the  suns  encircled  the  primal 
source  of  light ;  and  covering  all  was  the  Thi'one  of  God. 

"  Pray  before  thou  wakest,  for  the  earth,  too,  will  dis- 
appear," said  the  voice  near  me.  And  my  whole  heart 
was  filled  with  prayer  by  the  very  nearness  of  this  higher 
being.  But  the  green  cloud  now  moved  more  rapidly 
with  me  eastward  toward  the  approaching  earth ;  and  the 
cedar  island  floated  with  its  happy  multitudes  towards 
the  other  islands.  The  sea  glowed  in  the  east  as  with 
the  colors  of  the  dawn  ;  and  deeper  and  deeper  sank  the 
green  cloud  into  the  aurora  of  earth. 

Suddenly,  then,  the  halo  of  glory  round  the  head  of 
the  invisible  being  became  as  a  gi'eat  rainbow,  and  was 
absorbed  in  an  infinite  radiance  which  filled  the  heavens. 

And  the  earth  passed  away  like  a  summer  night. 

I  awoke,  and  instead  of  the  cloud  there  was  a  green 
meadow  around  me,  and  above  me  glittered  the  stars. 


IN  THE  BLOOM  OF  YOUTH.       383 

The  first  niglit  of  summer  had  followed  the  last  night  of 
spring.  The  moon  was  rising  like  a  silver  bow  in  the 
ghostly  air.  And  in  the  north  the  sunset  colors  of  the 
spring  were  changing  upon  the  mountain-tops  into  the 
morning  glow  of  the  summer.  My  heart  still  clung  to 
the  eternal  stars,  where  now  awake  I  lingered  in  my 
dream,  and  I  sighed,  "  Alas !  each  day  above  is  the 
beginning  of  spring."  Then  I  heard  the  voice  in  me 
repeat  the  old  words,  "  Child  of  man,  sacrifice  time  to 
eternity,"  —  and  I  sighed  no  more. 


THE  END. 


Cambridge  :    Stereotyped  and  Printed  by  Welch,  Bigelow,  &  Co. 


IM^rJigriimmw^ 


iiigif/iigtS 


